Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Howdy:

My Argentine boas are about 3 years old now. The male is about/almost 6' and the female is a little larger. She may even be approaching 7' total length. Up until now, they've been fed a rat per week (jumbo rats for the female lately and adult rats for the male) with a few skips for shedding, etc. For breeding, I understand that the male didn't need to be that big, but I just wanted him to be around 6'.

Anyway, the male is as big as I want to get him unless someone points out a good reason why I should try to get him larger. Pretty much the same thing on the female, too. I don't mind if she gets a little longer, but i am VERY happy if she doesn't.

Long story short, I plan to try and breed them this upcoming season. For those of you experienced in this matter, how much/often should I be feeding them to keep them in a good condition for breeding without them getting too skinny or being over-fed? Right now, I JUST switched the female to a small rabbit (2-3lbs each) every other week. Is that too often? I was going to drop the male down to one large adult or jumbo rat every other week. Is that too often or not enough? I suspect it might be too often. Would it be OK to do like one rabbit per month for the male or is the jumbo rat more often a MUCH better option?

Thanks for any/all advice!
KJ

KJ,

Long time no hear. I have kept and bred Argentines for several years, and expereinced the MOST profound growth while they were being fed on rabbits.

In my opinion however, more frequent feedins of smaller prey items would cause increased growth in Argentines.

I would feed the female on the schedule that you have her on, but would put the male on rabbits as well, just less frequently.

The weekly feeding of rats is sure to trigger growth,if the conditions are correct, so if you dont want growth from them, then I would stick with rabbits every two weeks

Take care

Fred Albury

>>I would feed the female on the schedule that you have her on, but would put the male on rabbits as well, just less frequently.

Thanks for the reply, Fred! Do you think the male on one 2-3lb rabbit per month as a STARTING point is too infrequent? (If that is in the ballpark, I can adjust it by watching his condition from there, of course.) I really have NO idea, but I do know he has been growing too fast on one adult rat per week...lol