....In addition to 6 subspecies of Rainbow Boas I keep Surinam Redtail Boas and 75% Diamond Pythons and Jungle Carpet Pythons and Black Milksnakes. This is a Jungle Carpet Python that I have had for 13 years. When I got her as a baby these snakes were one of the hot tickets in the hobby. She has produced almost 100 babies. Her last clutch was last year when I bred her to a full Diamond Python. Before that all of her clutches were produced breeding her to other Jungle Carpets. This snake refused to eat rats until she was over 8 feet long. Feeding her mice which she often ate by the dozens at one feeding was very tedious. At age 11 after I had tried all sorts of tricks over the years to get her on rats she finally decided to switch. She is really easy to take care of. She eats heavily for awhile and then does not eat for months.
This is one of my male Surinam Redtails. He is four years old.
This is my largest Surinam. She is 5 years old and is always hungry. I have intentionally kept her from eating too much and growing too rapidly or becoming obese. I was having a little success in the late 80s breeding Burmese Pythons and decided to try breeding imported Guyana and Surinam Redtail Boas. At one time I had 18 Boa Constrictors. I was still in the army and did not have enough time for them and never produced a live baby. After I retired when I started producing Rainbow Boas I got out of the Boa Constrictors. The Boa Constrictors were traded for some of my earliest imported Rainbow Boa breeding stock. I still feel the challenge to breed true Redtail Boas and the Surinams are my favorites. I have been building up a breeding collection of 2.5 captive born Surinams over the last 7 years and hopefully will produce babies from them in the future. These snakes are generally much harder to breed and must be older than Colombian Redtails before they can be bred.
