Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if I stunted my boas groath by not feeding him for like 2 months and a second time for 1 1/2 month thanks for answering and if so will he still get as long as he was suppose to befor. Thanks in Advance

Typically not, they will grow when food is available.

Was he refusing food for those periods? The way your note reads to me was that you didn't feed him for those periods. IMO that would not be cool if that was done out of lazyness or lack of funds etc.

I have also had finicky eaters, most notably was a baby male that ate nothing for the first few months of life, finally had to train him how to eat (stupid even for a snake) once he figured it out, he ate fine.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
20.28 BRB
14.18 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Yeah the cause of the lack of eating changes everything. With my pair the first year they both ate and grew at the same rate. This year though the female is now about double the girth of the male because he has had several months that he refused the food I was giving him. Basically he is to preocupied with the smells the female is giving off in the same room to bother eating unless he's really hungery.

If the snake is male and is being offered food but refusing I would not worry about it too much unless he shows other negative health signs. Mine went 2-2.5 months without eating, ate a small rat, then went another month or so with no food and the only noticeable effect was he didn't get any bigger. This is a fairly nature process for the males when artround mating season so should not have any effect on their final size/health.

If on the other hand food is not being offered then you need to allways offer food and hopefully it will be ok. Hopefully you have other animals eating rodents at the time when the male is refusing so you can minimize your rodents expenses. I just make sure to offer food to my male first and if he doesn't eat it then I give it to the female who, since I didn't breed her this year, is still eating like a hog.

Let everyone know the specifics and I'm sure that Dave, Jeff, or Mike can tell oyu what you need to do.