Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone! I currently have about a dozen boas, but I'm starting to think they might be a bit much for me. I love 'em but the big ones can be intimidating at times. This is my second year breeding them, but I've been thinking a lot about downsizing on my boas and getting a few balls.

As far as I understand, the care of boas and balls is similar. Would I be able to use the same setups as the ones my boas are in? I understand breeding will be a bit different because of live birth vs eggs. But I'm not worried about that right away, I would rather start with babies and raise them to adults before breeding.

Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

Rachel:

I breed and sell both species and have no problem producing from both using the same snake room. I don't necessarily use the exact temperature settings during the breeding season, but their not that far apart that it causes any issues.

If you have any questions about breeding ball pythons I can be reached at (408)981-6694.

Best of luck
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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

Thanks. It seems that ball morphs are different than boas. Do you know of a good site with information on the various ball morphs?
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

i dont want to breaking any kingsnake terms or rules....but if you want to see lots of diierent ball morphs...go to NERD`s website and look at there new page on eye candy and look at all the ball morphs...so you can get an idea on all the different balls out there....this is the only site i know of that puts pitures of most of the balls out there....NOT ALL BALL MORPHS ARE ON THERE...but there is a lot......

later ......PRIMETIME

Rachel:

One of the best places to see a good number of ball python morphs is NERD's web site.

Here is a link to that web site.

http://www.newenglandreptile.com/nerd/index.php/ball-pythons/nerd-s-ball-python-collection.html

Enjoy the show....
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Brian Gundy

www.for-goodness-snakes.com

hey how ya doing?...this is just my opinion....so dont any body jump on me saying all kinds of bad things about me, but i use to be into boas big time, first snakes i ever bred sucessfully, i had 17 to be exact, and i loved them dearly, but when it came time to clean and feed them, yes they can be intimadting, i knew which ones would tolerate being moved and ones that clearly would take a bite out of you every chance they could get..and as far as feeding goes, well lets say 1 lg. rat every 6-7 days for an adult ball, compared to some of my boas that would eat 3-4 jumbo rats every 7-10 days, i bred my own rats and still had to buy them cuz i could not keep up with feeding them, then i offered them all to a ball and boa breeder in a trade for all ball morphs, i traded 7 boas that were breeding adults,,in primo shape and 5 boaphile cages, 2 years ago he said to pick what i wanted, so i got 1.1 mojaves... 1.1 pastels... 1.1 spiders... 1.1 het ghosts...3 normal females and a female pinstipe..i got at the time one heck of a deal, one i could not refuse, i wanted ball morphs from the very beginning but could not afford there outragous prices, at the time albinoballs were 2500 bucks, so i was offered 1.1 albino boas for 800 each at that time when they were still going for 1200 each, thats what got me into boas, but over a 5 year period i went from 17 boas to 20 ball pythons, i love both alot and still have a motley boa, but balls take up way less space, a stack of 6 boaphiles for 6 adult boas compaired to 4 of his raxx stacked up in the same space houseing 20 adult balls, now breeding my own rats i barely have to buy rats for my balls, and cost me 2k less to feed them yearly ....hehehe....dont tell the wife cuz i now spend that money on more ball morphs, plus they will never be in my opinion intimadating.....this is just my opinion....but it is way cheaper to feed the same amount of balls as it is to feed boas, and way more space friendly to house lots of balls as to house the same amount of boas...plus there POOP is alot smaller...lol

hope this helped ya....and sorry for the long story....

later all......PRIMETIME

I enjoyed the story too. I think I might keep just a few of my really calm boas and make room for the balls! One of my females (thought she was gravid) dropped about 30 slugs for me a month ago and I still can't go near her (strikes at everything now). Do balls get aggressive after laying eggs?
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy

your ??? about balls getting mean after laying eggs, when they first laid them yes they were madder than a mother hummer at me and a few days after, but a few meals later and a couple touches with my snake hook has them back to normal, as for your sluggs sorry to hear that, thats the bummer with boas that i hated also, you wait all that time for her to have those puppys and wham-o sluggs, its the worst feeling ever,with balls she lays good eggs or bad, no guessing, and if you got good eggs its pretty simple to incubate them, if you have any common knowlege of how to do so, plus a 3 -4 foot monster ball is alot easier to deal with then a 7 foot killer boa....lol...

later.....PRIMETIME

Female balls will often get aggressive when they lay, but if you wash both the tub and the snake after, it gets the smell of the eggs off of them and they usually return to a normal feeding pattern and their normal behavior patterns.

No reason to assume you have mites or IBD but just an FYI for anyone reading this:

Boas can live with IBD for years and spread it to mates, offspring, and other snakes in your collection. Pythons die from IBD very quickly. There may be other transmission methods but at least initially it was thought that mites where the main one. This was several years ago so hopefully things have improved by now but my vet told me he did a study and found a very surprisingly large percentage of boas that carry IBD. If you are going to keep both boas and ball pythons be sure you are rid of all mites first. Also, might be a good idea to start with a normal or at least a small number of inexpensive balls first and make sure you can keep them alive for a few months before mortgaging the house for a morph ball collection (maybe those days are over now, lol).

I would think that anyone who has boas and balls for more than a few months can be assumed not to have IBD but if you haven't kept pythons before it's a possibility to consider.

n/p
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Rachel Squier
"The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." -Leo Tolstoy