Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello, I am new to the snake world and wanted to put myself out there and ask some questions. I just bought a Kenyan Sand Boa and have set up her tank / enclosure. Right now she is what I assume to be a jevinile being only about 7-9 inches long and very skinny. I was told that she was only about 3-4 months old (I bought her from Petsmart).

Right now this is my setup:
1 UVA 75 watt
1 Infra Red 75 watt
10 Gallon tank
Calci Sand
A wood shelter made out of a tree i think
Water Dish
Hygrometer
Thermometer
Cage Claps and Screen
Seperate feeding Cage (will be feeding half a pinky)
and some light timers I have yet to figure out

I am going to attempt to attach an image of the way the enclosure is set up.

Any tips on:
Feeding
Handling
Caring
or fun stories would be great

Regards

1341
0.1 (Kenyan Sand Boa)

And this is why I hate petsmart sometimes
KSB's are fossorial. The UV light's pointless, and just increases your temperature. And the petstore's profits.

I had KSB's for years. Sold them off back in...like 2005? What I used: An overhead ceramic heat emitter for heat. A thermostat. 3-4" of soil for substrate. Flat pieces of cork bark and rocks for them to hide under.

If memory serves (it's been a while) temps in the warm end need to be in the mid 80s. It needs to be able to get to a cooler end. They need clean water. They need a good substrate that they can burrow in. Sand might work. I used a peat moss/cypress mix. It's cheaper than calci-sand. It also can hold a burrow a bit, and it's easier to manipulate humidity with.
Feed 'em a whole pinky. I raised mine from babies, never fed 'em less than a whole pinky mouse and did OK.

Those half logs are pure utter junk for hides really. Snakes like things tight and secure; those're neither. Flat cork pieces are really popular, for good reason.

Good luck with 'em, KSBs are great. I got mine because I watched the movie Tremors one night and wanted a something close to a graboid Fun snakes.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

Yes, what Varanid said. Good advice.

A ceramic heat emitter (CHE) is a fantastic way to heat that cage, and so is an undertank heater (UTH).

The CHE will radiate heat down into the substrate and any rocks, warming the animal below. The snake can move around slightly to adjust how much warmth it receives, and where it gets it. Same goes with a UTH. The UTH is very economical, about 8 Watts, whereas the CHE will be around 50-60 Watts.

Whichever you choose, the one item you really need is a temperature controller. An ordinary plug-in lamp dimmer is effective with any CHE or UTH. Or get one of those herp-related ON/OFF controllers for around $30-$40.

Cork flats make great hides, better than the half log. A few cork flats placed around the cage will be much better than one half log.

KSBs can eat a pinky like nothing. They can eat much larger food than you would believe. As long as it has access to temps in the high 80s. Babies can do fine probably at 80 deg, but as the snake grows, it is better to have a hot spot at least 85 deg but more like 90 (or even more). At the hot end only. Always have a cooler side.

Really, a $3.00 plastic shoebox with a heat pad on one end is probably a better baby KSB cage than what you have. Not as attractive, but functionally better. The cage you have is more suited to an established adult.
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Mark

Great V and Mark,

Thanks for the advice.

I returned my UVA bulb and fixture and bought a small UTH.

However, i could not find any cork bark so i still have the half log.

I am still using my infra red heat bulb.

This is how i have it set up...let me know if i need to do something different.

On the right side of my ten gallon i have the:
Infra Red Bulb and the Water Dish

On the left side of the tank:
Half log and UTH

I have a thermometer on the left, middle and rigth side tops of the tank and a hygrometer at the top middle.

The substrait is still calci sand but i did buy aspen to replace the bedding with once this goes bad.

let me know what you think.

PS: i am having trouble with my snake eating.

go to a garden center and get those little clay bases for flowerpots. They work great as hides for smaller snakes and they're dirt cheap. Just buy 2-3 and put them around the cage (bottom up).

I don't personally like aspen, although others use it with no problems. I just have a hard time keeping humidity up using it.

How have you been feeding your snake? do you just place a thawed pinky in overnight (what I'd try first)? These are nocturnal animals after all.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

well i tried feeding the mouse in the afternoon. I keep her in the closet so it is pretty dark in there. I think she is still getting used to ehr surroundings

My Technique:

I place her in a seperate feedng cage that is plastic with no substraight and then i put the thawed pinky in there and let them sit for 3-4 hours...I tried feeding her friday and now she is sitting there not eating as i type.

Also is it safe for me to be doing this:

I thawed the pinky and she didnt eat it friday.
I put it in a ziplock bag in the fridge the past two days and am now trying to feed her the same mouse. Is that safe?

why do petstores still tell people to feed outside of the cage?
Don't feed outside of the cage. Wait for nightime, put a live pinky near one of the clay saucers or cork flat that you get, and come back in the morning. Make sure your snake has several inches of substrate, make sure it can get warm or cool as it chooses, and make sure it has hide spots appropriate to it. Those fix 90% of feeding problems, particularly if you're offering live (some are harder to get on F/t).

Moving snakes for feeding ranges from waste of time to actively harmful depending on the snake, IMO. It's touted as a way to prevent them from associating you opening the cage with food, but the *real* way to do it is to open the cage for more than just feeding, once the snake is established. If the animal is consistently food aggressive (i.e tries to eat your fingers) start tapping it gently on the head with something after you open the cage when it's not feeding time.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

If you are moving it to a separate feeding unit as you stated earlier, then you will likely have problems getting it to feed. Some tolerate this, but many will not. You should always feed in the primary unit as these are shy snakes as juveniles and moving them is going to put them off feed in many cases.

I had a large breeding colony of Eryx conicus in the 1980's and 90's. The young always fed the best when kept on an inch or two of fine sand and given live pinks left in overnight. Out of a couple of hundred young produced, I never had one that failed to feed. Substrate temps should be in the mid to upper 80's, and humidity relatively low. Measure your temps just slightly under the surface of the sand. With all of your heat sources, you need to make sure you don't over heat. I always used flexwatt under half the unit which also supplied a cooler side and did not use an overhead heat source. Shavings don't work as well as sand for the young as I believe they need the security of something more substantial pressing against them.

Kelly

My concern is that it can't escape the heat, with the UTH at one end, and the infrared at the other end. Ditch the infrared, or else place it over the same end as the UTH, and only turn it on at night if you want to view night-time activities.

Make sure you have hides at both the cool and the warm side, and maybe in the middle too.

When I had a couple of KSB babies a few years ago, they were always on the warm side, except when I would occasionally see them cruising around at night.

Feed it in the cage. If you use F/T, you can try wiggling it with forceps. Another thing I found worked (can't remember where I heard this), is to tap the snake on the side of the neck with the F/T pinky. It would cause the snake to strike sideways at the pinky.

Hmm . . . now I am wondering why I didn't keep them.
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Kent

0.1 Hypomelanistic striped cornsnake
1.0 Lavender cornsnake
1.2 Gray-banded kingsnakes, blairs phase
1.1 Oregon rubber boas