Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've read countless posts here regarding what size a certain species of female boa must be before being ready to breed. My question is in nature all different size animals would normally hook up so who says a 5.5' bci female can't be bred? I know if I put them together in a cage they will for me. Is it more because the size of the litter will be smaller or there will be adverse health effects as a result of being to young? I'm sure in their natural environment maybe it's part of nature's way to weed out a certain percentage of the population but part of me wonders if maybe the 6' rule of thumb is a myth. Sorry, I come from the question authority generation lol. Your thoughts?

you hear of people having a litter of only 6 and all are slugs or stillborn...
That's why you have mysterious illnesses killing young female breeder boas
That's why, sometimes, a new trait or morph doesn't come to light for several years...

as a matter of fact, that is why we have midgets and other deformed people in this world!..
and that's why you have 14, 15 year old babies, having babies...

If you don't control things somewhat, they can get chaotic..

Now in specific regards to boa breeding... if you want the most and the best,
meaning,
the most and largest perfect litters with all live perfect large babies for years and years to come,
the best way to safely go about this is to wait until she is maybe 6 feet or so and/or 12 pounds or so as I have heard many people mention (the exact weight...)

Believe me, I have spoken to several people trying to sell me a 4.5' - 5' PROVEN BREEDER colombian, or ask me why I haven't bred my 5.5' Surinam for the last 3 years !!!!!!

I know exactly what you mean and am not coming down on you in any way...
just pointing out some examples.. and what better way than to go extreme! lol

Just my $.02

Thanks, Take care - Joe
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'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin
Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo

On the remark about "Midgets and other Deformaties". Genetic deformities are just that....GENETIC! The age of the mother has absolutley nothing to do with whether or not she will have a midget. Now INBREEDING on the other hand......is the culprit of MANY defects.

the midgets and deformities are not due to breeding at young ages..
I was involved in an inbreeding post and this was just floating in my mind.. lol

take care
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

I have a 9 foot long proven breeder female colombian boa i've been sellng dirt cheap and have REFUSED to sell it to 4 people because they insisted on breeding it again this year and it is much too thin to do so!

If you do, either she would not make it through to partuition, or if she does, you can count on a small sized, very unhealthy litter of frail looking runts...
kind of like what a premature human baby is compared to a healthy full term baby...

See how they have to keep the baby practically in a incubator with tubes in it everywhere for 3-6 months just to insure its survival?!?!

If you have these 'premie unhealthy baby boas', would you want to have to carefully 'nurse' them to health and go through probably forcefeeding every one for 3-6 months before even attempting to sell one?
I sure wouldn't...

I also added this to answer the part of your question regarding litter size or adverse health affects.

thanks again - take care
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'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin
Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo

Genetics, environment and food availability combine to determine the adult size of boas. In captivity, feeding is more of a factor. Most populations of Boa constrictor ssp. properly managed mature in 3-1/2 to 5-1/2 years at 5 to 6 feet in length, depending upon the subspecies and to a lesser extent the locality. The imperator sub-species generally will mature earlier at a somewhat smaller size than the B. constrictor c. Some insular forms (Corn Is. as an example) can and do breed successfully at lengths just over 40”. The smallest female I've seen that delivered young without complication was an imperator less than 38” long with a mass of 1.6 kilograms, but was 4 years old at parturition. It is our observation that age is the primary factor in boa maturity, size is relatively unimportant..

As early as 1979 Neil Ford of UT Tyler produced data showing that live-bearing snakes encounter the same difficulties giving birth at a premature age as do many other animals. Sub-mature snakes of apparent sufficient size to carry young produced fewer viable young and consumed more body reserves than older mothers of similar size. And experience is also a positive factor; more young of comparatively larger mass are born to older experienced mothers. Inducing ovulation in young boas under about age 3 years by feeding heavily is risky and over the course of the project may not yield more viable babies than waiting for full maturity.

Many keepers have strong opinions about how big a boa has to be or how old and even how often they can or should be bred. These opinions arise from their own experiences and breeding results and are even influenced by the genetic heritage of their stock. No one can give you a recipe for breeding boas that will be as good as the one you will develop for your animals in your facility after observing them for some years.

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Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com
www.riobravoreptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

Thank you for that.
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"Continuing to cling to the patterns you know, inhibits your ability to discover what you don't know." - Eric Allenbaugh

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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

You bring up some interestin points. What I would like to contribute COULD be used in regards to breeding, but I am speaking to just size alone (I debate this with my friend all the time).
I am a believer that snakes, in the wild, are on average smaller than those in captivity. A couple reasons. 1. Controlled enviroment 2. Steady diet
When we keep our snakes (in this case boas) we have a controlled system as far as enviroment is concerned. We do not have months of rain where food can be hard to come by. They do not have periods of time where food is scarce when we are in control. They do not have drouts where food prey dies off do to lack of water and food for the prey item. I think I am speaking to both ideas in one here, but oh well. In the eviroment we give them we have constant heat source which allows them to grow at a rate that you might not find in the wild. We feed our boas once a week or 10 days or whatever it is that you do. Snakes, I am sure, have such a slow metabolism because food is not as prevelant as it is here in captivity. They do not have to go for days/weeks/months sitting or wandering around looking for food. Let's face it, in the wild, if a snake struck and missed the prey. The prey in MOST cases would win. The prey would run like heck and not look back. In captivity they are stuck (for those that feed live) in an area where they are doomed once the door is closed.
I suppose I could go on and on, but I won't.
Now, in relation to this subject I feel that snakes breed much smaller in the wild. I have no proof as I have never been there to study this myself, but with what I discribed above, it would make sense. Yes, you will get a snake that might come in WC that is just a big old boa. How often does this happen though. Do you really find 9-10' females in the wild?
I feel that there metabolism is slow to allow it to survive the few meals it really gets in relation to here. This, would then mean (to me) that a female can produce good healthy babies at a smaller size. Now I too go by the 6'rule. I do not care to waste a life on proving my theory correct (babies or mothers), but I still say it is quite probable that a 5' female gives birth in the wild. yes, they would be smaller clutches, but none the less, they are healthy babies.
I think we have money involved in this, therefore, and rightfully so, we want the most "bang for our buck".
Thoughts?
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Brian Oakley
Phoenix, Arizona
BrianOakley@cox.net

I tend to agree that wild females are probably smaller when they start breeding but are most likely older than a comparably sized captive female. Due to the perfect conditions in captivity that you mentioned, it is possible to have a female boa that is one to two years old and six feet long with heavy feeding. IMO a large but young snake still should not be bred - maturity is just as important, if not more so, than size. I personally feed my animals MUCH more moderately than many keepers and they won't reach breeding size until 4-5 years old...and I personally wouldn't breed a snake under 4 years of age, regardless of her size. This year I am breeding my 6' long, 11 year old female and a 7' long, four year old female to two different males. I'm reasonably sure the older female is already gravid, but she keeps her boyfriend until I'm positive. I'm not particularly sure the younger female is though she's refused a prey offering and she basks a fair amount...but doesn't look any larger than she normally does. She may yet be too young to successfully breed - not that my male hasn't tried - or it may just not be showing yet because she is fairly large.

A side note on the older female: When I got her she was supposed to be a 'he' and I housed her and my 'other' male together in a large enclosure. In the fall 1996, when she was about 4 - 4 1/2 feet long and three years old, I witnessed courting between the pair...I immediately seperated them as I thought they were 'fighting'. Then came the November '96 Boa Constrictor issue of Reptiles and I learned it wasn't fighting I'd witnessed. I still kept them apart because 1) I wasn't ready to raise baby boas and 2) I didn't feel she was old or large enough to be giving birth. I could easily have left them together and she probably would have given birth...but I wasn't willing to risk her health. I immediately started reading up on breeding and learning all I could. She didn't reach six feet in length until probably 98 or 99, and I bred her for the first time in the fall of 1999. She gave birth to 18 healthy babies in June of 2000 - no slugs and no stillborns. All of her offspring were small by most anyone's standards - but the mother is also smaller than average. The female holdback I kept from the litter is still only a little over 3 - 3 1/2 feet long at three years of age and will most likely be six or seven years old before I attempt to breed her - though I'm sure she'll be capable of breeding before then. Another pair of juveniles that I own (my best friend produced them in May 2002) are almost as large as my '00 holdback. Their mother was roughly 7-8 feet when she gave birth and probably not more than 5-6 years old (we don't know as she wasn't bought from the original owner).

So to end my rambling There is a fair amount of variance between individuals and some people may be successful in breeding smaller/younger females like mine, but that doesn't mean every 5 foot long female is ready to breed and produce healthy offspring. As is the case with most animals or even people, younger mothers tend to produce fewer offspring, and often those offspring are not healthy and thriving like offspring from an older mother. As always, just my opinion.

Raven

I guess that was the point I was trying to make, but failed to spell it out. I do not believe it is a "size" as much as it is an age. In MY opinion, I think 3 years old is an age in which it is safe to breed. Although there are people that swear that they get their females to 6' in 18-24 months, I do not feel that is safe......again, my opinion.
Snakes in the wild grow MUCH slower and the average size for an adult "anything" in the wild is considerably smaller than that of which may be in captivity.
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Brian Oakley
Phoenix, Arizona
BrianOakley@cox.net

of the size of that one female - at three years old she was only 4 to 4 1/2 feet long which was smaller than I wanted to breed her. Her offspring took after her small size, despite the fact that the male who fathered her is 7 feet in length. By four years old, even smaller boas are reaching a decent breeding size. My two younger girls, both 4 years old, are much larger than my original female - both of the younger females are already 7 feet long and still growing whereas the original female has never gotten beyond 6 feet.

And I'm sure you said it just fine....I just rambled after you.

Raven

Thanks to all that replied. It's great to hear different viewpoints and I think the general consensus is patience waiting for the females to mature is the best bet while dealing with captive bred animals.