Rick:
Not certain how you determined the boa's 8 5/8" length. But even if I were to obtain a somewhat longer length--say 9 1/4 - 9 1/2", your specimens is small for a newborn boa of last year (which it most likely is) that is now 10 months old.
You are lucky in having it respond so quickly to feeding. Try and keep it as low to 70 as possible. At that temperature, the boa may take two, 1 - 3 day old lab pinkies but generally one at a time is plenty for such a small boa. At around 70 degrees, it should take about a week to fully digest the meal so one pinkie every 1, 1 1/2 to 2 weeks will have the specimen grow reasonably rapidly. And of course, as it gets larger, it can handle larger meals. I would not try and have it take two pinkie mice if the temperatures are going to be much above 70.
What happens with all boas, small and large, if they take a giant meal and then are maintained at say 75 degrees or higher, before the digestion process can proceed fast enough, the snake will noticeably increase in diameter which I have interpreted as the forward part of the meal (nearest the head and last to digest) begins to putrify and thus gases occur causing the snake to bloat. They will tend to regurgitate part or all of the meal when this happens and thus the reason for keeping them at lower temperatures. I have some of my adult boas that have taken such a large meal, instead of planting themselves under a heat source, they will find the coolest place in the cage and even sit in one of the water dishes. It will generally take longer than a week to digest such large meals at around 70 /- degrees.
Can you tell me the approximate area, habitat type, and elevation where your specimens was found? About 8-10 years ago I examined 2-3 Idaho specimens from near the Hells Canyon area which had orange ventral coloring. Then just this past couple of months, I had the opportunity to examined 4 more Idaho boas, three more from the Hells Canyon area, one of which had basically orange ventrals, and one from SW Idaho in the Owyhee region. Eventually I need to examine specimens from north, east, and southeast Idaho and obtain small tissue samples for a proposed revisit into taxonomy questions dealing the C. bottae.
Richard F. Hoyer
