Reptile & Amphibian Forums

use the same procedure for Central American locales as we have for Colombian BCI? I'm talking aout breeding here.

I haven't had any first hand experience, so I am just putting things out on the table.
However, I've heard that C.A. females birth at 95 days P.O.S. Also, there is the issue of maturity. How are we able to determine when the female is best prepaired to breed. Some may grow to 3ft. others to 6.

Basically, should we be looking for new information to base breeding projects with C.A. boas on? Different criteria than Colombians?

Are there different circumstances for individual locales? Nicaraguas, Sonorans, Panamanians, Costa Ricans, all have become fairly available, in the case of the Costa Ricans and Panamanians newly available. So what are we looking at for captive breeding.

Any thoughts and/or ideas are welcome.

Jeremy Stone, Gus Rentfro, the Burkes, anyone with C.A. experience that they can compare to other locales or subspecies.

n/p

Well, the easiest way is to concern yourself with the maturity of the boa as apposed to size. If you know the locality on said female look up what they usually top out at, if its in range, give it a shot. I wouldnt try breeding anything under 3 or 4 years though, as you'll have the same issues as with colombians.
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- Mike Fourquet

Cloaca Herpetoculture
www.CloacaHerps.com

be trying a pair born in June of '04. Unlike my other '04 and '03 animals, this female grew fairly quickly, despite no difference in feeding regimen from my other boas.

She is 66% het Blood, her lineage is 50% El Salvador (grandsire Blood) and 50% Salmon (Granddam Salmon, mixed lineage).

I do not have a weight on her, but she is about 6ft. and never got fed more than once a week, she was kept on medium rats until september, and was moved to x-large. The male produced sperm plugs at 12 months old, his feeding regimen was 1 rat fuzzy per week up to August (2 months old) and then was fed one rat pup every three weeks. He was changed to a weekly schedule this summer at 25 months old in an effort to gain weight for the anticipated breeding. Meanshile I have a male Type II Anery 66% het Albino (lineage of 50% El Salvador granddam Type II and 50% Colombian Grandsire Kahl Albino). He was born early '05, and he was also fed weekly, he is eating rat pups, and is 30inches, and not produceing sperm plugs. A 10 month old Western Costa Rican male produced sperm plugs, from the time I acquired him (CITES animal from Serpentarium in Costa Rica) he was fed every three weeks as well. My Colombian '04 Albino female is 4.5 ft. and eating medium rats weekly, she has another year or two before she will be ready on her current growth pattern.

Basically, none of these numbers tie together very well, the variable of difference in locale is strong, and maybe a factor in determining when a boa is capable of breeding.

Ok, so say that you don't know the age of a snake, then you have to go by size and weight. Like the post that I started below about my hypo nic. She's 4' and 846 grams but I do not know her age...so I can't go by the 3-4 year thing. I did get a lot of different opinions though. It seems that no one really has any definative answers (other than their own experiences from trial and error). I believe that most people use Gus Renfro's calculations of minimum sizes and weights or just guess.

Amie

were my reasons for starting this one.

We know the conditions for Colombians because of all the data collected when pioneers were breeding them. I think that evidence supports the need for data for other locales as well.

No one ever wants to compromise their animals through mistakes in judgement on breeding, and the more information that can be gathered to help this the better.

And that's why I started my post. Since so many people keep and breed b.c.i. it is suprising how little (readily available) info there is on them.

Amie

... is nothing is writen in stone. You can cycle and tme everything perfectly and get no breeding. A female may just not mature and be receptive untill its 7. Hell, our rhino iguanna laid 2 eggs with no male about a month ago and shes only 2. We also had a dragon accidently become gravid thats roughly 14" head to tail, and she laid 15 good eggs.

There is no science. You should use common sence and not try to breed too young, but if its ready to happen it'll happen.
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- Mike Fourquet

Cloaca Herpetoculture
www.CloacaHerps.com

Me too where did it go. Things like that are valuable to have on the forum they show the character of the person that writes it.

hmm?

this would be Gus, the Burkes, Vin Russo and some others.

There hasn't been the number of breeders producing centrals like there has been with colombians.

Think about it, it's been 20 years or so and just now we have (colombian) boa breeding videos from some top breeders.

I think it may be another 10 years or so until we see the same for Centrals unless some of those breeders I mentioned above step up and get it started early.

I have found different reports on size and weight.

I think Gus knows a bit more about their natural behavior in the wild, which is what he's based his principles on... from feeding, to breeding and more.

I think some of our issues here lie with the fact that many centrals these days are not as pure as we think they are.

Another issue that has resulted from this is us not knowing an exact size limit on these snakes.

I have sonorans that are 06's at 3 feet long, I have 04's at 3 feet long.

I have a 5 year old sonoran that is just 4' long, and a 6 year old sonoran that is over 8 feet long.

I have 3 year old Nics just barely 2 feet long, and 3 year old Nics just about 6 feet long.

You have to remember one thing... power feeding and getting a female to breeding size faster IS bad (harmful, unethical, etc.) , yes,
BUT,
just because a female is not as big as you'd like her to be, doesn't mean she will deliver a huge litter and then wither away and die, nor does it mean she will have complications...
many times those females will just have smaller litters of smaller babies.... many times just as healthy.

In the case of Amie's Nic, I firmly believe that animal IN THE WILD would have probably bred twice already.

She has not been rushed to her size, she is not underfed or starving, and she is by far sexually mature.

These are just my opinions, observations, experiences, and hopefully I can provide more concrete evidence once i've done more breeding with my central groups.

Take care, Joe
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

I will agree with one statement in its entirety...

Most of the animals are not as pure as we think they are.

With the exception of my Gee line Hypo which was purchased from a fourth party Ball Python breeder who got her from Ben Siegel all of my boa with Central American blood can be traced back to founding stock and or bloodlines. Something I am proud to be able to say.

Do we even know the age of her boa? She stated that when she got the boa less than a year ago she was 450 grams. How would she have breed at least twice and how do you "firmly believe" it?

my comment was based on my previous mention of what I thought her age was... at best, 3.5-4.5 years old.

in the 'outback', willing and eager males don't ask or think, they just climb on and try..

I would think a 3.5-4.5 year old female in the wild would have already bred twice.. this was what I was trying to say.

Just my opinions..

take care, Joe
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

This is what you actually said:
"I believe she looks to be minimum 2.5 - 3.5 years old, and so she is without a doubt more than sexually mature."

In the next breath you said:
"didn't know she was only 1.5 lbs!"

Then you said:
"Another issue that has resulted from this is us not knowing an exact size limit on these snakes.

I have sonorans that are 06's at 3 feet long, I have 04's at 3 feet long.

I have a 5 year old sonoran that is just 4' long, and a 6 year old sonoran that is over 8 feet long.

I have 3 year old Nics just barely 2 feet long, and 3 year old Nics just about 6 feet long"

So how can you estimate age by looking at an animal?

Then you said:
"In the case of Amie's Nic, I firmly believe that animal IN THE WILD would have probably bred twice already."

When I questioned it you said:
"my comment was based on my previous mention of what I thought her age was... at best, 3.5-4.5 years old."
Where was that I must have missed it?

Amie said her weight was 846 grams. Lets just assume when the nic was born she was 46 grams. That leaves 800 grams of growth. If she is 4 years old that would mean she gained 16.66 grams a month. At age 2 she would be 446 grams or just under 1 pound. Do you really think any female BCI could breed at that size, give a solid litter and regain all the weight and then some to breed again the next year in the wild especially? I don't, and I really don't think it is good to lead people to believe it is possible. Vinnie

This was taken directly from Vin Russos web site:

"These Boas are Nicaraguan Farm bred boas. I received a few of them from Ben Seigel Reptiles back in 2001. They are beautiful pure blooded Nicaraguan Hypo Boas that they stay small and have unbeleivable Colors. They take a few years to get their mature colors - but when they do they can rival even the best Salmon or Orange tail Hypo Boas. I beleive that these dwarf boas will become the next big craze in the Reptile Industry. Females breed at around 1500 grams & males at 500 grams. However, they grow quite slowly & it could take 3-4 years to acheive this size."

Hope this helps Vinnie

That's where I got my target wieght of 1500 grams. According to a list compiled by Gus (I forget where I found this info), mainland nicaraguan boas should have a minimum size of 1.1 meters and weight at least 2kg.

As to my nics age, it is just a guess. When I asked Ben, I said "At three feet she is probably an early 04?" His response "at least" That is all that I know of her age, so I've been treating her as an 04. But if Ben got her from someone else in trade and they weren't feeding her, than her growth may be slightly stunted from "normal"

It is possible that she was only 46 grams at birth I have had farmed nics that small. Here are her weights as of 4/23/06:

She arrived at my house 3/31/06 I wanted to wiegh her then but I didn't have batteries for my scale. 4/23 498 grams at this point she was eating weekly (various sized mice). 5/20 542 grams she started taking f/t small rats after that. 6/10 596 grams. In June the light used to light her vision cage shorted out and started a fire, she had a teeny tiny burn...so she refused food for about 3 weeks...can't blame her. She weighed about 540 grams by the end of the 3 weeks. She stared eating again 7/17 and on 8/25 she was up to 720 grams. And now, as of 10/9 she was 846 grams And she's due to eat today.

Sorry for the long post....

Amie

She may be 2-3 years old and she is growing great for you. I just think it would be a mistake to assume that because she is of age she can breed.

When two of the most qualified people in the business on the subject say not before 1500 grams it would be insane to think she could have bred twice before 900 grams.

She needs to have the appropriate fat stores to have a healthy pregnancy. At 900 grams she is just not ready. Next year when she is 2000 grams this will not even be a question and you will not be risking your girl. Take the extra year it will pay off big time in the long run. Just my opinion. Vinnie

...actually three if you count Amanda saying that she's too small. I'm going to wait until next year, at the rate she's gaining weight right now, she'll be nice and big next year. I'd hate to lose her in my haste. She's a great snake, excellent temperment.

I was curious as to what others said. There have been quite a few people raising smaller boas over the years, but not many have posted their observations on places like these forums. This is where I learn (and from talking to local breeders).

Amie