Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 3 question actually. First I have a six foot male red tail that had a respitory infection and mites when I purchased him about 4 months ago. I cleared everything up and its been about 2 1/2 months now. And he's doing great. Now my question I have recently purchased a 5 1/2 foot female and after a quarentine period I placed them together. The male has refused to eat ever since they've been together Could her presents in his cage be upsetting him and causeing him to stop eating? They are always coiled together.
Second is regarding the new female She is very skinny only her backbone is showing alot. The woman I got her from says that she was eating a jumbo rat every week. I've been feeding her small mediums and they make a small lump in her I can't imagine her eating a jumbo. Nor can I picture her eating every week and being that skinny. My concern is can I feed her to much to fast? I don't want to make her sick I've been feeding her every 2 weeks but she wants to eat about every 5 days.
And finally sorry this is so long but I have a baby Guyana I've had both 3 weeks. She's in a 10 gallon tank. and has a basking spot about 90. I feed her for the first time a small mouse and she regeratated it about 3 days after eating I didn't handle her at all. What would Cause this?

Thanks again sorry its so long.
Casey

1) Why would you purchase an animal with a repiratory infection and other ailments?

2) What did you have in mind when you introduced the male to a partner so thin it's spine was showing?

.. I just want to know!

-----
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

To reiterate what was already said, the quarantine period's purpose is to keep an animal seperate to monitor for illness prior to mixing with other animals and possibly contaminating them. Since your female is so thin, disease must be considered. Quarantine periods for boid snakes should be MINUMUM 3 months, but 6-12months is ideal if the animal appears healthy for the entire period.

Boas are solitary animals and ideally should not be kept together unless attempting to breed them. Your animals should not be bred until healthy, if ever. You might be seeing breeding behavior brought on by the the change of conditions and the newly aquired mate. This will ultimately kill your female if she is indeed as emaciated as you describe.

My best suggestion is to take your whole snake family to the veterinary office, have them all checked out, assessed properly, and with a hand's on exam, and then have a first hand proffesional opinion on where to proceed. In addition, but not to substitute my first suggestion, is to continue educating yourself on boa husbandry and health care. Buy some books. Continue surfing the net for information, and join a reptile club.

I own every book I can find on boas. I have been keeping them for over 10 years now and never had any problem til recently and all my reptile see a vet once a year regardless of weather there appears a problem or not. I am not a newbie when it comes to reptiles. Was just looking for some advice.

Casey
2.1 durmerils
1.1.9 red tails
0.1 Guyana
1.2 Bermese Pythons
0.0.5 sulcata tort
1.3.1 leopard tort
1.1.1 red foot tort
1.1 dwarf cherry head tort
0.0.1 eqyptian tort
0.0.1 greek tort
2.2 leopard Geckos
1.0 Asian Monitor
0.4 dogs

I was merely giving the best advice based on the information in your previous post. The mistakes made were indicative of a more novice keeper, and I had no way of knowing it was merely related to "having to condense cages", which in itself sounds like you're a little over your head. But to stop being judgmental, I don't know you, your situation or the expertise you have picked up in your 10 years of reptile experience. With all this said, my advice is still the same, and you may want to take it with a grain of salt to apply it to your specific situation.

I apologize if I've ruffled any scales
Ian

Its ok I probably should have been a little more specific as to what was going on. I will be in the new house in less then 2 weeks and will be able to seperate the again. The female also has an appointment with my vet but its so hard to get reptile vets around here so she can't go for 3 weeks but she has already gained weight. So I think she will be fine. I apologize for sounding bitter I've been going through alot with buying the house and my new problems with the snakes just kinda pushed me over the top of the stress meter.

Casey

I did not realize he had it til a couple of days after I bought him. When I took him to the vet he couldn't find anything wrong he had to do xrays before we new that was his problem.

I put them together because I am in the process of moving and needed to condence tanks til I get into the new place in a couple of weeks