Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This was my last attempt at keeping boas. Needless to say after several bites, including three on the face, this snake had to go to a breeder. I recently acquired another boa which I'll post pictures of soon. I kept this picture because it is a neat pose.

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No offense on your snake's part, but I hope the breeder doesn't let it mate. Especially with more and more people freaking out over herpers keeping large snakes, temperment should be considered as much as beauty when breeding. I can understand breeding a tempermental snake because she's het for somethin'-or-other, but if I was a breeder I'd take the second-best-looking angelic boa over the slightly-more-beautiful SOB beast that's hell-bent on my death.

I'm just a stubborn ass when it comes to things like that, sorry. Especially breeders that supply pet stores that will be selling boas to first-timers and kids and the like, they have a responsibility to produce pets moreso than just pretty snakes.

Temperamnet in boas is maybe 25% genetics and 75% how it's treated.

I'm not saying you are a bad keeper if you have a defensive boa. I'm saying that you haven't done everything you can to observe it and learn what it needs. Temperatures, caging, lights, the way it is fed and handled.. the whole deal.

Tame boas aren't tame because of some TAME gene, they seem tame because they are more adapted (by accident) to average conditions in captivity. Possibly, seemingly tame boas may produce more seemingly tame babies but that is because of the package of traits they have from many thousands of generations and is likely not much enhanced by 2 or 10 generations in captivity.

In my opinion...
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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

I guess a little background is in order. I had that snake since he was a hatchling. At about 3 feet I guess he started coming into maturity and became very defensive about his territory. He was ok when not in his enclosure. I had to get rid of him because at the time I had a job where I traveled a lot and my wife (who wasn't too crazy about snakes to begin with) had to care for them while I was gone. She was not too keen on cleaning the cage of any aggressive boa. The person I gave him to was a large scale boa breeder in Florida. I don't remember his name. The aggressiveness of this snake did not bother me, but after my wife watched the snake bite me on the face, she said it had to go! And if you're married you know that if the wife isn't happy, ain't nobody happy!