Reptile & Amphibian Forums

a bci or a rainbow boa? not planning on getting any(yet), im just interested.
-----
jake

my addiction:
0.0.2 normal ball pythons (lazlo and izzy)
1.0 amelenistic corn snake (zyklon)
0.1 blizzard corn (blizz)
hybrid breeders association
hybrid haven

BCI is easier to care for but they get larger.

Rainbow boas need higher humidity & can be very secretive. If you use mulch as a bedding to help maintain the humidity they may burrow and be hidden most of the time...

humidity but both are really easy and reproduce readily in captivity.

Alex

And feel the BRB's do require more care.

They urinate fairly often requiring frequent cage cleaning.

My BRB's also have damp hide boxes that require changing and/or cleaning.

The caging and environment also need to be set up different. Main differences are:

Temps - The BRB's are kept a bit cooler, the BCI's a bit warmer.

Humidity - Duh, they both need it but the rainbows need it MORE. To automatically maintain the humidity I do three things,

1) Large surface area water bowls, the larger the surface area, the more water evaporates. BRB's also love to soak so the bowl should be large enough for the snake to crawl into. Don't forget to leave enough room so it does not overflow when the BRB displaces the water.

2) Limit ventilation, my ~ 6 cubic foot cage sections (24"x24"x18"ish each have only a 2" round vent as the sole source of ventilation. Of course I open the doors fairly often and get a large exchange of air then.

3) Damp hide box - I use peat moss on bottom and green moss on top of that.

Here's a few old pics from 2003, now each section is set up like the upper right section with a 2 gallon flat fish bowl on top of a sterilite 1754 damp hide box. The tubes are used during breeding season, I keep them plugged when not in use and can open as many or as few as I want to reconfigure the cages. They seem to love "cruising the pipes". Last year out of 2.7 had one bad litter (slugs) and 6 really good litters totaling 136 babies

-----
Thanks,

Dave "Rainbows-R-Us"

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB)
2.7 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (adult breeders)
2.5 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (sub-adult from 2004)
4.8 Brazilian Rainbow Boa (sub-adult from 2005)
2.1 Hypomelanistic BRB
0.1 Het for Hypomelanistic BRB
0.1 BCI "Elvira" normal from 1989
1.0 BCI albino / het-anery
0.1 BCI Hypo / het-albino
0.1 BCI Anery / het-albino
0.1 BCI Hypo (possible super)
1.0 BCI albino het stripe
1.0 BCI salmon hypo
0.1 BCI ghost

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

And Rainbows do require a liitle more care but it's not terrible. If you're considering rainbows, follow Dave's (rainbows r us) advice. Mine were voracious feeders, even more so then my bci. And as far as secretive, both bci and rainbows are nocturnal.

Amie