Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Could anyone tell me what the growth rate of the Kenyan Sand Boa?
I have one I got last December and I beleive it was around 8-9 inches long when I got it and i measured it a day ago and it only measured about 11 1/2 inches. Is that normal?? I don't know the sex of it. If that has anything to do with it.

TIA,

The sex has a LOT to do with it. If you have a male, it may take it 3 or 4 years to reach 16 or so inches and still be completely normal. (Most will grow faster than that, though.) If it is female that is at least 1 1/2 years old, I would definitely expect it to be much longer than that, but at the same time, it could still be a very healthy female. Try to find out what sex it is and let us know. It is probably behind on growing, possibly due to a slow feeding schedule or potentially genetics. But, if it appears healthy and alert, don't worry too much. How often do you feed it/how much do you feed it at a time?

When I first got it I was feeding it 1 pinkie once a week. It wouldn't eat anymore than that.
But here in the past couple of months it wants to eat more. So now I feed it 2 pinkies once a week.

Should I feed it more often?

It also has trouble shedding. Everytime it sheds it doesn't come off in one peice. Spot just shed and it still had some skin stuck un its belly up by the head. Spot sheds all the time and has had this problen since I got it. The pet store owner said to soak him in luke warm water for about a hour. So that is what I have done but only a couple of times b/c spot seems stressed out when I do it.

Thanks

All the snakes I have in the 11" range are females that are eating 2-3 fuzzy mice a week. What yours will eat depends on how heavy it is, and it's individual appetite. Some snakes never seem to eat very much, while others will eat everything put in front of them. Generally it is safe to "eyeball" it on the proper sized food. Next feeding, get a fuzzy and try to compare its width to the width of the widest part of your snake. If the fuzzy is about the same width, then see if your snake will eat it. (If the fuzzy is much wider, see if you can return it for store credit or something. If the fuzzy is much thinner than the snake, try to get a bigger fuzzy or a small weaned mouse, maybe even a pinky rat.) If it eats the fuzzy, you can try to give it 2 the next week, and 3 the time after that. I breed mice on a small scale and also have a decent sized stash of frozen mice, so I usually have all sizes available to me. If you only have 1 snake, it probably wouldn't be economical money or time wise to try this, so you might just have to deal with what the local stores have at the time. I'd recommend getting 1 more fuzzy than you think your snake will eat, and if the snake doesn't eat 1 or 2, you can just throw them in your freezer for the next week. This can help slowly adjust him/her to frozen food, might push your order into a quantity discount range, and supply food if you can't make it out some week. In short, at 11 inches, (without having something to judge the body of the snake) I'd say it's probably a good time to try moving up in feeding. My rule of thumb with feeding is that I give them as much as they will eat, and once they have taken 2-3 meals of 3 of a certain sized mouse, I move them up to the next size. Different people probably use different systems, so I'm not saying this is the best way, just what works for me. But at this point, I'd guess it's probably safe to jump from 2 pinkies a week to 1-3 fuzzies a week. Assuming it eats all its meals, in a year or so if it's around 20" and starting to pack on weight, you probably have a female; and if it's under 18" and still thin, you either have a male, or it needs some more food.

I was going to post a picture but it says it is too large and I don't know how to shrink it so That it will fit.

Thanks

I had the same shedding problem with my Kenyan Sand Boa, today! I asked a breeder what to do, and this is what he told me: Put the snake in a container with some wet paper towels. Let the snake sit on the paper towels for a few minutes, and then rub the wet paper towels on the snake to remove the shed. This worked for my snake.
As far as soaking -- I do this with my Leopard Geckos and it works well. But it's not recommended for Kenyans.
I was also told that keeping the sand boas on shavings instead of sand will help them shed better. My adult Kenyan is currently on sand, but I'm going to try pine shavings with my two babies.
Good luck!

Don't use pine. It is toxic to reptiles. I use sand on one end (my snake likes his sand) and aspen bedding on the other.

DON'T USE PINE SHAVINGS!!!! Oils in them aren't all that great for reptiles.