Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Eating like pigs on thawed already!

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Not even a speckle and translucent white.

Gorgeous! Are you selling any?

Mike (and others),
You mention that the newborn are already taking prey. This is totally different from my exerience with the Rubber Boa. So a question or two and and my observations with C. bottae.

1) Do newborn Rosy Boas shed their skin immediately after birth as do garter snakes, do they take a number of days to weeks to shed, or do they delay shedding for a considerable length of time such as the following spring when taken out of brumation?

2) Is this behavior of taking prey soon after birth a common situation with newborn Rosy's, uncommon, or quite rare?

In contrast, depending on a number of factors, newborn Rubber Boas generally take from about 10 days up to 3 - 4 weeks or more to shed their skin depending on prevailing temperatures and some other consideration. I have never had much luck getting newborn C. bottae to take prey the year they were born before it became time to place them under brumation conditions. Although I know that other individuals have been successful in getting the species to feed during the winter, I have found that it is the exception that this species will do so under the condition in which I maintain my specimens.

I have two boas, born early on July 7th sent to me by another researcher that had already shed and each took a single baby deer mouse soon after I had received them. They have refused food since despite offering the same fare a number of times. They are in nice condition so will simply be allowed to go through a 5-6 month brumation period and then I will try feeding them again next March or April.

Richard F. Hoyer

Richard:

This year I decided to push the limit and feed some rosies THE SAME DAY THEY WERE BORN, AND THEY ATE. Most of my rosies born this year have 2-3 meals in them before shedding at 8-12 days. This is resulting in bigger, healthier and faster growing offspring. FYI.

Larry

American Desert Boas

The feeders have all shed. I did not count the days but it was about the same as my Surinam BCC born about the same time which took 10 days to shed. From previous years if I recall, this is about right though I think I had some shed sooner. I do not offer food until they shed. I use mouse pinks thawed in hot water off tongs to get them to eat. You have to wiggle it some but not too much and kind of hold the nose of the pink against the nose of the snake. It is kind of an art. I do not raise live but if can not get them to eat in a few weeks I will buy a live. Once eating, all have mine have taken f/t aggressively off tongs. I have never brumated the first winter and have never tried to breed before three years old. Hope this helps.

All three breeding attempts this year were sucessful with no heat pads or anything. I just put them on top of my upper level boaconstrictor cages and left them there the whole time. The whole room is heated with a little change day to night and month to month. They were moving around quite a bit at the beginning of their pregancy since it was dipping too cool at times. Once I mantained a constant temp of around 85 they settled. I felt they wanted more so I tried to maintain 90 for the last month. The babies came out as good as ever. It irks me to expose them to the electromagnetic radiation of heat pads constantly especially while their cells are dividing so rapidly. I suppose the EMR is low from the way the pads are wound caneling out a lot of it and one may put a tick metal plate over the pad to block some as well. I do not know, never measured it, but proved to myself this year I do not have to worry about it anymore.

Thanks Mike and Larry for you input.

We all know there are some similarities between our two native species of boas. I am learning about some of the differences as well thanks to the information you provided.

Richard F. Hoyer

n/p

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