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My BCI will be 3 years old in July and is currently 5 ft 2 inches, 6.3 lb. I'm getting ready to order a boaphile cage for him, and am trying to decide on a 4 ft or 6 ft cage. The reason I'm considering just getting a 4 ft cage is that I suspect he may not get much longer than 6 ft in length, so a 4 ft cage might be sufficient.

My question is, when does their growth rate slow down? Do you think he still has the potential to be bigger than 6 ft, considering he's almost 3 years old now? Any recommendations on cage size?

Some background information: We don't know for sure that he's a male. We had him probed by a reptile vet who has experience with boas, and it was inconclusive. One side probed male, the other female. We feed him a large F/T rat about every 2 weeks. He sheds every 6 - 8 weeks.

males as you probably already know tend to be smaller than female, either way a 4' 421d cage is good for a single adult but if you only have one snake a 4' 422d cage makes a better display and removing the boa easier. if you have the room go for the 6 footer.

or you can always call jeff when your ordering your cage......he's the pro

The 421D is big enough for anything up to about 7', then you should start thinking about a larger cage. I have several nearly 8' females in that cage, but that is less than ideal. That being said, you are in complete control of how big your Boa gets. Feeding once every two weeks is fine, but if you feed rats half the weight of whatever you are feeding now, that growth will slow dramatically. You are in the drivers seat. Your Boa cannot get any larger than it's food intake allows it to get. Have fun!
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Jeff Ronne Sr
The Boaphile
Director USARK

Originator of Boaphile Plastics
The Boaphile Boa Site

Jeff,
Thanks for the reponse! I'll be calling you, probably next week, to order a cage. I've heard great things about the Boaphiles.

A male of that size will have a very obvious external spur structure. A female of that size will have virtually no external spur showing as most of it will be recessed within the body with maybe just the tip showing.

Kelly

My boa has good sized spurs. I've heard this means it's most likely a male, but my reptile vet said differently. He said that's often a good indicator for pythons, but not with boas so much. He has many years experience working with boas, so I'm assuming he would know. I still think it's a male, though.

No offense intended, by your vet has it turned around. Sexing boa constrictors by spur morphology can be done to 100% accuracy from juvenile specimens up to adults if you know what to look for. It's the shape of the spur combined with the morphology of the spurs connection to the body that needs to be assessed. With pythons, spur sexing can usually not be considered reliable.

I have worked with boa constrictors since the early 1970's and sexed probably close to 1,000 of them. I've never seen spur sexing give a false result yet with boa constrictors. Pythons are a completely different story. I've seen male pythons with very small spurs, no spurs at all, and males with only one spur. I've also seen female pythons with very large spurs. And all these scenarios are not all that uncommon. While I have seen a few odd ones, for some reason, boa constrictor spur morphology is not nearly as prone to these aberrations.

Kelly

Kelly - thanks for the information. What you said is also consistent with everything else I've read, so I tend to agree with you on this one. This vet was highly recommended by others in the hobby and has extensive experience. But with the large spurs and the "inconclusive" probing, I pretty much doubt what he says about this.

I appreciate the information you gave! Sounds like I've definitely got a male.

There are many good reptile vets out there that are great at diagnosis and treatment, but many have not had much experience with actually sexing reptiles.

Kelly