Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi. Posting a few pics of Fiji boas in the wild. I live over here, and we find them when people are clearing forest. The local guys tend to kill them automatically, but in a few cases people have been able to intervene and rescue them. From a few of these rescues we've had captive born neonates, and now we are trying to work out how to start a captive breeding programme, as there is starting to be a local demand for pets.
We feed local geckos to the small ones, rats, day old chicks and mynah birds to the adults, and I have supplemented geckos with chicken heart for the medium size.
We're still learning. Hints and tips welcome.
Here are some pics...

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2 Babies about 1 year old in toilet roll

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Three pics of adult wild caught female Fiji Boas, Candoia bibroni bibroni.

Usual colours seen are brown /grey, and my captive bred babies seem to be able to change shade at will, but we sometimes get these spectacular blacks with red bellies, which seem to retain their colouring. This is one of the females I'd like to breed.....

These photos are a bit old and have appeared on other forums. If you're interested I have a few more recent.

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BEAUTIFUL (O)_(O) OMG I love that black one. They look rather big. What is the length of those guys on the grass. I can see how people would have a fear of a ground boa of that size with that head shape. Man those really look like cottonmouths. Can you give us a little more info on them?

The wild boas found here are anything from 4 - 6 feet, and are mostly females. (I know this because several of us are desperately looking for males to breed with some captive females.) We rarely seem to find wild males, and I'm beginning to think it is because they really are MUCH smaller than the females. I have two young males now 2.5 years old and they are still less than 3 feet long.

In the wild they are mostly found in shrubbery and small trees, and mine like to climb if I provide hides high in the tank, so I presume they are frequently arboreal. They do this defensive cobra-style pose only when confronted on open ground: and will actually strike and bite cobra-style.

They feed on geckos, rats, mynah birds, and fruit bats (BIG flying fox type bats)in the wild. In captivity we rely on F/T geckos, day old chick, and I have found mine take chicken hearts happily.

I agree their head shape (especially the black one) looks much more like a venomous snake and certainly the Fijians are very afraid of them. However, when you do come across them in the bush, they dart away VERY quickly and only offer to bite if cornered. Many of them are docile and handle-able immediately on capture.

We are currently feeding the black female up for the next breeding season so if we can get some suitable sized males we're hoping for some interesting babies. I'm just a bit afraid of putting my 90cm long babies in with this big mama!

Another pic of a wild adult grey female doing the cobra thing. This snake was the largest of those caught, about 6 feet long.

She has had a rough life: you can see a flattened section that seems to be an area of ribs they were either broken or missing from an old injury. Didn't seem to stop her feeding or being bloody-minded: this lady has a temper!

I think what you're doing, saving them from slaughter, is great! As far as breeding them, being in their native area, I would probably look into building a very well thought out outside enclosure system. Tom Crutchfield has been doing this in Southern Florida, so he may be a good person to contact in regards to proper/escape proof ways to build them. If you could make a large enough outdoor set up for a natural cycle for the animals, breeding should be almost simple. Observing females during breeding season, you could bring them into indoor enclosures after they become gravid so any babies can be kept within a smaller enclosure when born....obviously those babies in an outdoor pen could be near impossible to find. Aside from the local market, you should also look into exporting them as it would probably be much more lucrative for you. I know you could probably get a bidding war on those blacks, lol. Best of luck, and please keep us up to date.

Thank you for sharing that info with us helenthereef, candoia of all types are fascinating. 4-6' is a little large for my keeping tastes but as woods said, I could certainly see getting a pretty penny for those beautiful black candoia. You've done a great thing by saving these snakes from unecessary destruction. If you get babies, come back and post pictures of them here. Do you have any closeups of their heads?

Cheers,

Ahh I just found your link in that one post. Excellent photos in there!

Thanks for all the interest, it's always nice to be able to show off the family!

Here are some close ups of the three juveniles I have: All were born in captivity from pregnant females rescued from the wild.
Two (Magenta and Rifraf) were born around September 2006, the third, (Constantine) probably about six months later in March 2007.

I know everyone says Candoia are easy to sex, but I had great difficulty until recently: I think they were simply too small for me to see (must need stronger glasses). But now I am sure that Magenta and Rifraf are male, the jury's still out on Constantine.
What I'm trying to work out is when they will be large enough to mate with that black female...

Hope you enjoy, there are more random pics on pacificboasnakes.blogspot.com

Hmmm.. not sure why but, I can't post the photos I just uploaded here: maybe it takes a while for new photos to register. Here are the gallery links to the pics of the juveniles, I'll try and post again later.

https://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/143104Boa_triplets-med.jpg
https://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/143104Rifraf_on_branch-med.jpg
https://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/143104Constantine_on_glasses-med.jpg
https://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/143104Magenta_head_and_tongue-med.jpg
https://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/143104Rif_raf_head-med.jpg
https://gallery.kingsnake.com/data/143104Constantine_in_blue-med.jpg
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Hi,

These guys are stunning, Helen would you e-mail me? my address is budmonitor(at)hotmail.com I would love to chat to you more about your breeding of these sp.

Cheers Matthew

ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS SPECIMENS...YOU ARE A LUCKY LADY TO BE WORKING WITH NATIVE SPECIES SUCH AS CANDOIA...HELEN, WILL YOU MARRY ME AND MOVE ME THERE?....LOL....JERRY

Well, that's my first marriage proposal directly generated by a snake!

Actually, Jerry, you are already a sort of foster parent to Rifraf; I don't know if you remember (via your Candoia page) talking me through his swallowed pebble gut obstruction a couple of years back, but I'm not sure I'd have been able to get him through that without your advice.

I'm not quite ready for wedlock, but if you want to take a Fijian holiday I can point you at the resort from which these babies came! (check out www.paradiseinfiji.com)

I'm encouraged to have a go at breeding them this year: we are coming into the cooler months now, and I have the black and brown females waiting for my little males, so I'll probably be positing here regularly as we go along.

WISH I HAD THE MONEY TO BLOW ON A TRIP TO PARADISE HELEN...I WOULD LOVE TO SEE THESE SNAKES IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT...I REALLY HAD NO IDEA THAT THEY HAVE SO MANY DIFFERENT COLORS AND PATTERNS...I THOUGHT THEY WERE ALL DARK BROWN WITH THE ORANGE OR YELLOW BELLIES...I LOVE THE BLACK AND WHITE ONES WITH THE DIAMOND PATTERN....GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR BREEDING PROJECTS...I LOOK FORWARD TO MORE PICS...AND TELL RIFRAF I SAID HELLO....LOL....JERRY

Hi Jerry,

I am very hopeful that I can get Rifraf to become a father this year... He and his brother are now 2.5 years old and about 90cm long, weighing in at 225 gms.

I want to try breeding them with the black, red bellied female (she's more like 4.5 feet long and at least twice as thick), and hope we'll get some really interesting colour variations.

Anyway I am going to start a new thread asking for advice, so I very much hope you will respond to that.

Cheers, Helen