An old Bolivian’s tale:
In 1991 or 1992 I purchased a Boa that was advertised in the Reptile classifieds newspaper known as “Fauna Classifieds”. This two page yellow paper was one of the prime places at that time to find that special animal for sale. I understand for many of you, this is a historical reference. Some of you were still sucking your thumb and pooping yourself at that time! Anyhow, I digress. This fellow advertised the following; “Female Bolivian Boa. 6’ long. $350.00” Now this was at a time when if you were fortunate to have a Bolivian Boa, you had to just about kill to get it. The babies were $750 each and other than Albinos and het for Albino Boas, Bolivians were the most expensive Boas on the market. Though they did not stay on the market for long, such was the demand for them. So needless to say, when I saw this advertisement for an adult female for $350, I was all over it! I was the first one to call, I’ll call the advertiser “Scott”, who was selling this creature as a “Bolivian Boa” as such because she had been come from Bolivia. Seems Scott had a friend who was a Federal Government “Security” expert and he was working in Bolivia training men for something or other. I do not know the exact specifics as Scott was vague about that. His friend was in the Southern area of Bolivia just outside of Santa Cruz when he spotted this female Boa Constrictor in a tree. Knowing that his friend Scott was a snake guy he decided to catch the critter and bring it back to give to him. Since he was a Federal agent of some sort, he must have been able to pull some strings to make that happen.
He gave the Boa to Scott not knowing that Scott was strictly a colubrid guy who knew nothing about Boas and didn’t care for them. Hence, Scott was just selling her. So I found this diamond in the rough. A 6’ wild caught female Bolivian Boa of completely unrelated blood to anything else in the US. She was very likely at least ten years old at that time. They don’t get a lot bigger than that down there. She is alive and well as she has been for that past 17 or 18 years in Minnesota. I do not know her age exactly but she must be close to 30 years of age. By far the oldest Boa I have.
This Bolivian female is actually quite tame too. She has never offered to bite. In fact she has always been reluctant to bite rats let alone me. She produced her first litter in about 1997 for me. Three little babies and about 20 slugs. I did try to breed her every year from when I first obtained her, but it took several years to see that first success. I gave her the next couple years off to regain weight. I started trying to breed her again in the fall of 1999. Nothing. 2000 fall came and went. When fall came around in 2001 I introduced a male “Silverback” from Joe Terry’s original Silverback litter born in 1987. This guy was 14 years old and a workhorse breeder but he had never been able to get her to breed successfully and this season turned out the same. In March or April of 2002, it had been a couple months since I had that old Silverback in with her, she refused to eat. This was nothing unusual as she did that about one in three times that I offered that tasty fresh killed monster rat to her. She didn’t eat. She spends nearly all her time on the shelf. 2002 was no exception. There is no heater on the self, but the heat from the cage above does radiate downward onto the shelf a bit. I wasn’t worried about her yet.
Well two more feedings go by and she still would not eat. Bummer. Two months go by without a meal. She still isn’t acting like anything is wrong at all so I wasn’t too worried. About her. A few more weeks and I did start to worry. Was this the downward slide to the old girls demise? But eventually she eats after a little surprise!
I was walking down her isle one day doing something in a cage directly across from the cage where the old girl lives when I heard that sound that usually makes my wife scream if she is anywhere near when it happens. Bam! The old female Bolivian had smacked the door! In that split second after that initial impact my mind raced and I knew exactly what had happened! I thought, “you have got to be kidding me!? She WAS gravid!” I spin around and there she is still on the shelf looking out at me with her mouth open. Ohhhh! I am so pumped! It hadn’t crossed my mind that she might be gravid. Not once. I do not know what she had yet but I know she had something and the possibility that I may finally have a decent litter from this animal I had worked so hard on for so long just had me giddy! I tried to see past her onto the shelf but I could not. This was one of my old melamine cages with a 2 X 4 screwed the front edge of the shelf. I had to remove her to see. I run to get my elbow high glove black leather Harley glove. Come back and open the door. She has retreated slightly now and is intent on protecting her little deposit. I manage to avoid the teeth and get a comfortable grip for both of us.
Out she comes as she just gives up once I have her. I moved her to an empty cage and race back to see the crop! There they are! Twenty seven of the most beautiful Bolivian Boas I have ever seen! Babies with drastically reduced pattern too! Wow! Best I had ever seen till then and the best I have seen since. Here are a few of them:
After this success I gave her a couple years off again to regain her weight. In 2006 I bred her again but this time she had all slugs. Here she was in 2006 ovulating:
She produced a massive number of slugs later in 2006 and I figured that would be the last time I would try. You see she will only take one rat per feeding now and it took years for her to regain weight to regain that healthy look.
Then this year I noticed her show a huge weight distribution change. She converted fat stores into egg follicles. This was very obvious with the greatest weight distribution change I can ever remember seeing in a Boa prior to the introduction of any male. I was not planning on trying to breed her again, but who am I to argue with nature? She obviously wanted to reproduce, so I introduced a male. He was all over her. After a nice ovulation and shed, this time she has continued to eat. I have no idea if that is a good sign or not, but believe me, she needs every bit of nourishment she can get. She has already lost a significant amount of weight up front and is looking nice and thick in the rear half. She is about 8’ long now and has the second largest head in the place. Second only to a 18 year old female that is over ten feet long and 70 lbs. She is not about a month and a half into it now I can’t wait to see what these puppies look like this time!
Wish us luck!
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Jeff Ronne Sr
The Boaphile
Director USARK
Originator of Boaphile Plastics
The Boaphile Boa Site
