Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Frank, I dont know if you check the other forums so I decided to post my question here. I know you have kept Boelens and knowing you worked with Boids before Monitors I was wondering if you have a idea on what could be the key to sucess with breeding them in captivity. At this time I believe they are one of the very few species that have not or rarely been bred, I had no luck at all with my 10 ft female! Regards, Jim

I have not kept boelean but I have a friend who bed and hatched them twice, I can email you his coordinates.

I know these and molucan scrubs are very much the same, they have a high metabolism when offered good temperature options, stuffing them with an occasional large meal is not a good idea, regular smaller meals seems like a better option to me. Also both species show a red belly coloration when in breeding condition, this in my case is the result of cooler NTL temps 4-6 weeks. I know my friend got his boleans to cycle the same way.
I am no snake specialist, but even my African rocks get a red belly when in breeding condition.
I am not sure if this has anything to do with breeding?

Incidentally he keeps them in very small cages, of course I don’t agree with this but it’s to show you that size has nothing to do with breeding conditioning. I say this because guys like Stan keeps them in extra large set-ups.

Steve, do you still have that Mollucan scrub for sale? Let me know.

unfortunatly I cauld not keep them because of health issues, I sold them to the guy I tough hade the best chances to breed them, so that I could get some in the future if helth permits, but the darn bloke sold them. man I took me 12 friken years to get thos, now I can say goodbye to seeing them again in this lifetime.

I folowed FR advise and it worked, the male obviously was ready to mate, unfortunatly my female was very small and a runt of the litter.

ps. my friend called me about this thread, steve are you friken out of your mind? dont you dare give my cordinates to anyone, dont you remember how those idiots from morelia.com have treated you? I will not help them bozos even if hell freezes over!
gee iv forgoten all about them, but I have to agree, I to am not interested to help them in anyway.

anyway mike if you wany baby boleans I maight get some @ very good price, but molucans I cant.

Sorry to butt in - but if you're really interested in cbb Moluccans... Hopefully I'm not "one of those idiots", but I have posted on the morelia forum a little in the past few months.

Funny, mine bred in a cage I originally built for monitors that I never ended up owning. I'd be happy to share my experiences with these guys, even though I've only been lucky enough to have them breed for me once.

Take care,

-Rolf

Rolf you cant where shows that don’t fit, the few idiots know who they are, good for them, when you spit in the air sooner or later it may come back at you.

Glad to see your success with such an amazing animal, you just made my day, bravo!

Congrats. That's pretty awesome. I've never heard of anyone else breeding these before.
Mike

Thanks for the kind words. For some reason, not too many people work with these guys. The whole scrub reputation is a bit much for most people I suppose. I think they're awsome - big (but not giant) active, observant and, I think, pretty easy to maintain.

There was one other clutch that I know of that another fellow hatched out - he got 4 males. I was lucky enough to be a little female heavy, so I traded him one of my females for one of his males giving us each an unrelated, cbb pair. If I recall correctly, our two clutches actually started to hatch on the same day.

Jobi, it must have been rough to pass yours on, I know it would hurt to lose mine. Anyways, at least there's a few cb's floating around out there and even imports seem to do pretty well. Funny, I always hear how poorly import Boelen's do. I wonder why?

I think the main reason imports fail is the poor collecting and holding conditions they endure. The first Black python ( Boelens ) that was brought to the US was back in the early 70's by Hank Molt. Hank brought the animal in by hand and it thrived with no special care. I saw that animal sitting at his shop forever before the Houston zoo bought it. It lived for years. I believe this was because of the great condition it arrived in.

In the late 80's early 90's Boelens appeared again in the trade here. A friend on mine moved to Indonesia got a job at a Skin Factory. Boelens and Bloods were two species that were used and he would buy snakes take them to an exporter he was also working with and have them shipped to wholesalers here. I was told the trappers collecting the Blacks would catch the snakes put them in burlap sacks and because the nights were at times very cold bury them in the ground to keep them from freezing. I remember unpacking some of these animals. Most were skinny and dehydrated combined with the stress levels and it's no wonder they didn't do well.

It figures as the snakes became valuable more effort was taken to make sure they stayed in good shape some better conditioned animals started to come in but it's still a tough deal to collect and ship them (holding time alone )and they still go thru a lot this probably weakens the animals immune system to the point to where many can't recover and it eventually catch's up with them. Plus I think a lot of the guys that end up with them do a good job of killing them .

I think they have been bred here four or five times. Frank Memmo ,San Diego Zoo , Paul Miles. If the animals are in good shape and cycled right like with anything else they go. Getting copulation isn't tough I've seen half dead ones breeding a week after they came out of the bag.The correct cycle seems to be the key to sucess along with the animal being in top shape.

Ernie Eison

Yea, keep them just like I keep monitors. Only cooler.

They are very cool temps(50's to 60's F) with a choice of dark and lite hot spots(100plus F) Cheers

Hi FR. You say just like monitors only cooler. Meaning dirt and all? I've been meaning to ask a similar question since reading some of the threads about snakes over on your site. I got my kid a ball python a few weeks ago and have been keeping it in a small plastic tub with temps 80-95 f like they suggested on the ball python forum. Thanks.

Roger