Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I gettin a guyana boa constrictor next week and setting up the cage for it.Im not shure wether to use a heat strip for under the cage or just a heat lamp.I was also thinkin about using both because they need a daylight cycle but would using both elements create it to be too hot for the red tail?Im a green iguana vet with some snake experience.Ive done some research about to properly care for a guyana but am just confused about the heat and lighting aspect.Thanks for any help that yall give me

I would highly suggest you read up on this species before even deciding to acquire one. If you have little to no snake experience you may not want to start out with a Guyana boa. For the most part, the care of Guyanas is the same as others from the Boa constrictor taxonomy, with the exception that like most BCCs (Boa constrictor constrictors) they are less tolerant of bad husbandry and overfeeding than their BCI (Boa constrictor imperator) counterparts. Try these sites:

http://www.riobravoreptiles.com/boas_suriname.htm
http://www.redtailboas.com/care/
http://www.anapsid.org/boa.html

I'm curious where you practice. I have yet to meet a vet that specializes in only green iguanas. Most are trained in all species and then pick where to specialize whether it be equine, large animal, zoo medicine, aquatic species, small animal, avian, reptiles, or all exotics.

I think he may have meant vet as in veteran. Why not try using both and if its too much heat you make the adjustments. Its all about tweaking the system to get it right. It sounds like you're heading in the right direction. Belly heat is always good and so are light cycles, you've mentioned both. Yeah reading care pages is fine but trial and error and learning what your snake needs by watching him/her is more important than anything else in my book. If you pay attention,the snake will tell you what it needs. Good luck with it. Sounds like you've put some thought into it already so you'll be fine. Later. Mike Panichi
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honesty is my only policy

np

LOL!im not a veternarian.I just get lazy with my typing sometimes and just used vet short for vetern.Thanks for the advice yall gave me.Im just going to use both the heat pad and a heat lamp and adjust to what the snake feels best.I'll just keep note to myself to use a lower wattage heat bulb instead of gettin something that emits too much heat.Thanks again!