Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently aquired a male conda about 6 months ago. Hes exactly 9ft and 40 pounds. Ive figured hes probably full grown the previous owner said he was more than 4 years old. Anyway Ive read this book called whats wrong with my snake and it says adult boids in captivity should be fed 2x their weight per year.Anyway i fed him a approx. 3 pound rabbit every 2 weeks so far sometimes i get a slight larger rabbit 4-5 pounds and feed him once a month. ive always used this method for my adult burms and tics also. Is this a good schedule??? Also I think im giving this guy to a good friend of mine who loves him And i want to start off with a baby green soon I fell in love with them!!! anyway to start I have a 30 gallon tank set up with newspaper. Temps are about 78 ambient and 90-95 on the heat pad. There is a hide over the heat pad(is this a good idea?) a branch in the cage and a large dog bowl as a nice pool on the other end of the cage. Is this a good setup for a baby green....also im so sorry for al these quyestions but im really specific with feeding , I was wondering how often and how much to feed a growing green.
thanks so much for any help
Bobby

Bobby,
A male green of that size and weight is about right, and you would not want him much heavier than this for that length. The concept of feeding adult boids twice their body weight per year is a generality and is only useful as a guideline. Other factors will alter that feeding ratio depending on metabolic differences with regards to age of the individual, weight, and the species involved. As a general rule, an adult medium size boid would easily sustain a stable body weight under this type of feeding schedule. However, much larger or smaller adult species of boids would be sustained on less than this. As an example, my older adult greens eat about the equivalent of their own body weight in food over the period of a year. Actually, the twice the body weight per year schedule is probably most applicable to actively growing young adult boids. As with any feeding schedule, the weight of the individual should be monitored and feeding adjusted accordingly to allow for individual metabolic differences.

A 30 gallon with newspaper would work for a young green that is acclimated and feeding well. However, if this is a newborn and has not been well started, I would recommend a smaller unit until it is acclimated and feeding without hesitation on rodents before using the larger tank. You will also need to think about the top of this cage and the ability to maintain the humidity between 60% and 70%. The warm end you are using would be too much for a green and 90 would be about as high as you would want, and the gradient down to 78 like you have would be fine. For young greens I have the hide box covering over both sides of the middle of the gradient so they can thermoregulate and still remain under the hide if they like. I feed neonates at 7 to 10 day intervals depending on the size of the food item.

As far as soaking pools, there are differing philosophies on that topic, but the bottom line being don’t start using them unless you intend to continue the practice throughout the life of the snake. To use pools for a few years and then stop is going to be a major source of stress. Jud and I personally never use them, and we always start them off that way from birth and have never seen any issues from it. To see further discussions on this topic, check out the posts in the following threads on this Anaconda Forum:
Anaconda enclosures – Aug. 31
Further comments on the use of pools – Sept. 7.

Thanks,

Kelly