It was the summer of 1981 and I had placed an ad in a local little paper that read something like this:
"So your Mom won't let you keep that snake any longer huh? Call me and I'll come and take it off your hands."
I'm not kidding. I really did that. I got three calls off that ad over about a three month period. One call was from an anesthesiologist who had an 8' Colombian Rainbow Boa. He just wanted to talk to the kid who had placed this creative ad. I went to his place to meet him and check out his Rainbow Boa. He wasn't interested in getting rid of it. It was fun to finally meet someone else with a similar interest.
The next call I received was from a guy named Greg Kuhar. Greg called me and asked, “What’s this ad about? What are you asking anyhow?” I explained that I was trying to find a creative way to find a cheap Boa or Python and thought that maybe someone would call with a freebie for me. LOL Greg invited me to come to his house and check out his animals. Greg had 3 or 4 Boas and a 7’ Burmese Python in one cage. The cage was 4’ wide, about 2’ deep and around 4’ tall and sitting in the left corner of his small living room. Greg was about five years older than I was with long sandy blonde hair. He had a laid back friendly disposition that a lot of my old high school buddies had when they had the munchies. If you know what I mean. He invited me to check out his Boas not knowing me from Adam. I hadn’t owned a Boa yet but knew all I could read about Boas and Pythons.
The last call from the time when I placed the crazy ad was from a family whose son had basically abandoned the Boa he had once cared for. His parents were taking care of the snake and it looked perfectly fine. It was a nice light Colombian Boa at about 3 1/2’. They would take $75 for it. $75 was a whole lot of money for me so I’d have to think about it. Think about how to get that money more like! When on the way out the door I was met a beautiful German Shepard they had. As I left they said those fateful words, “If you can find a good home for our dog, we’ll give you the Boa.” That’s all she wrote! All I had to find was someone in the country who wanted a free beautiful German Shepherd. Took me a couple days and I had my first Boa! It was so cool. I eventually traded the Boa for a Burmese Python. The Burm?! I got that puppy from Greg Kuhar of course who really wanted to get rid of that Burm as it was getting too big. He was disappointed to see I had a light Boa because all his other Boas were really light and he wanted a dark one. Oh well.
It was early in 1985 that I got a hankering to get another Boa when I just dropped in on Greg Kuhar one day. Greg agreed that he would be willing to sell one of the Boas if I would bring up a few nice fresh rabbits and $100 in cash! I got the rabbits from an old rabbit breeder named Lee who was nice enough to whack them in the head for me. I ran them over to Greg and along with $100. I was ready to do the deal. Greg explained again that he really wanted some dark Boas so I would have to take the lightest one. That one was “Big Momma” the first Boa I ever bred and Matriarch of who knows how many Boas out there today.
Here are a few of those descendants:
That last one is a “Lucy” bloodline female het Albino. I can’t wait to see what comes from her!
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Jeff Ronne Sr
The Boaphile
Director USARK
Originator of Boaphile Plastics
The Boaphile Boa Site
