Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a female BCI that is 2.5 years old. I am feeding her 1 jumbo rat every 7 days. She is around 6' - 6.5' and between 10-15lbs. Does this sound like a good feeding schedule to you? I was wondering if I should switch her to ever 10 days or 14 days, or just keep her at 7 days? Thanks for all of your input.

One appropriate sized meal (A rodent of aprox. the same girth as the largest part of her body) once a week is not only a good schedule but an easy one to keep up with. I feed all of my boas on saturday. Sounds like you are on the right track to me. Good luck with everything.

Great, thanks.

By your description an animal that size and on that schedule is on a "feed to breed" regime.
If that is your plan then carry on,if its longevity your after,cut it back to 14 days then during the 3rd-4th year 21 days.The animal will enjoy a long healthy life.

My $.0¼
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TnK

Yep! I agree 100%.

Agreed as well.

Thanks.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

My 4-5 yr olds are just making the switch from 1 large to 1 jumbo every 10-14 days (some are just making the switch from 1 medium to 1 large!)
Regardless... IMO, I only feed the snakes every 7 days for the first 1 year, every 7-10 days for the 2nd year, then they move to 10-14 day schedule (or if it's a large prey item, such as a small rabbit for my 7-8 footers every 2-3 weeks). I try to vary the schedule as much as possible.
A good rule of thumb is to feed at least a day or two after the snake has defecated the prior meal. You don't want the prey to make an overly large lump in my experience with boas.
This is all just my opinion based on my own slow and steady growth regime with my collection.
Good luck,
April
(my 9 yr old Albino below is on 2 jumbos every 14 days or so, she was about to get fed right after I took this pic)

My LARGEST boa is 6.5 ft. and 17 lbs. She will be 4 in March. She gets ONE Large rat every 2 weeks.

You are OVERFEEDING your boa. And everyone that says you're ok, is doing the same.

I feed weekly under two conditions, females during their first year, and males up to 6 weeks old. In BOTH cases these are small meals. Some of my boas I will feed weekly one month before I begin cooling.

Normal regimen for males of ANY age, 2-3 weeks on a meal that barely leaves a lump (one that will be gone the next day). My adult males are fed every 3 weeks at MOST. Females usually every 2 weeks, I can feed this frequent because I feed small meals, like I mentioned for the above female.

Be glad you don't have a BCC, you'd probably have killed it by now.
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http://www.GilbertBoas.com/
http://www.BoaList.com/

I feed my snakes only when I have to,lol.

When they're bugging the hell out of me every time I walk past their cage/tub.

I've got 56 boas, I think - mostly '07, then '06, then older. and so on. Bought them from many many different sources.

All kept in the same room, in Sterilite for the most part.
All kept at the same temperature and humidity.

That said, all things being equal -- they're all different!

Some of them the food goes right through them -- High metabolism.

Some of them take quite a while to assimilate and process a meal -- Low metabolism.

Some utilize their food intake very efficiently and grow like weeds. Others don't seem to grow much at all.

Doesn't matter if they're siblings from the same litter and from the same breeder. They're all different to some degree.

Some localities/ssp. tend to like it cooler. Some localities/ssp. like it warmer.

You are going to have some variance between sexes and between individuals.

Feed poop to poop and you can't go wrong.

jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

Thank you all very much for all of you posts. I think, after reading all of the opinions, that I will start feeding her 1 jumbo every 2 weeks. The main reason that I am asking is that I just switched her to jumbo 2 weeks ago. I feed her the first week and she took it immediately. The next week she took a while before eating it. Thanks again.