Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everybody,
I am researching the possibility in acquiring a BCC; I believe most of you would agree that these are probably the most beautiful snakes of all.

My concern though is the size that these boas can attain. So my questions here are mostly targeted towards those owning BCCs:
1. On average, how long can these boas be grown if I maintain a feeding schedule that won't allow them to grow huge. And what would this schedule be?

2.In what size of an enclosure do you keep such a snake. I personally don't like melamine cages, so I am asking about the readily available plastic ones (especially the ones from www.Showcasecages.com).

3. Last but not least, what do you feed such large snakes? Rabbits? Jumbo rats? chicken?

I would really love to own a BCC, but I want to make sure that I can maintain such a snake - I am not one of those people who buy out of excitement and a couple of years later are looking for places to dump their pets.

Thank you all in advance for your help.
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1.0.0 Dumerils Boa
1.0.0 Royal Python

How long a snake grows to is controlled by genetics, under feeding a snake to keep it small will only result in a long skinny snake. I keep my big females in a 6x2 box, which is really not big enough for a 10 ft snake. They normaly eat 2, 10 lb. rabbits a month.

Thank you for the info. Regarding your females, can I safely assume that they are on average 10ft long?
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1.0.0 Dumerils Boa
1.0.0 Royal Python

Yes but it takes about 6 years or so for them to reach that size.

That's awesome!
Please post some pics of that snake!
Aaron

I personally have seen some BCC eat almost like a burm or retic. If not fed a good size meal once a week they would thin out and thier sides would look saggy and unhealthy. So really it depends on the animal but dont underfeed it to try to keep it small because you would have no idea what kinda of defects that they can get. Even if you keep them in too small of a container.
I cant remember exactly but I do know that someone here has a caresheet they made specifically for BCC since they arent as hardy as a BCI.
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My Photobucket

Hi!
I have 25 pure BCC (Guyana, Surinam, Peruvian) right now and have noticed the same thing. When I was first starting with them, I was feeding small things weekly. That didn’t work out so well. I learned that you'll do a lot better to feed bigger items less frequently. You can't feed them the same sized prey items you would a colombian of the same size so be careful. It's all about the balance.
Like JackJebus is saying, when I went to feeding them every 2 weeks (which is what I do now) I noticed that they would get skinny and deteriorate quickly. You have to find out how much to feed them to last them two weeks and, at the same time, be sure not to feed them too much so that they puke. As Yoda says, “once you start down the regurge path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” Wasn’t that it or was it something else?
Oh, in my experience and through conversations, I find Peruvians to be much heartier, but also bigger. You won't have the regurge problems you will with suris and guyanas, but they'll want more to eat and will get bigger and do it faster.
Good luck. They're cool snakes, but will keep you on your toes. You don't have the same room for error during your learning curve that you do with colombian BCI. Oh, I also have 3 BCC hypo crosses and their idiosyncrasies are very similar to the pure BCC.
Here are some Guyana BCC for fun.
Aaron

Those are really beautiful snakes you got there.

Thanks everybody for your input. It's been really helpful. I read a lot of useful information on www.boa-constrictors.com as well; they seem to know what they're talking about.

By the way, I forgot to mention that I live in Cyprus, where the market for reptile keeping is almost non-existent. This is one of my concerns in the maintenance of a large snake such as a BCC. For example, I have yet to find out a vet specializing in exotics.
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1.0.0 Dumerils Boa
1.0.0 Royal Python