Reptile & Amphibian Forums

a couple weeks ago i got a pair of month old healthy baby dums. they are eating fuzzy mice or pinkie rats every 5 days without hesitation. I've got each of them temporarily quarentined in their own 5.5gal in a seperate room from my other snakes. i've provided aspen substrate, 1 hide over the heat pad, small branch (i'm in the habit of giving all my snakes a branch), and a good sized water bowl. the cages are in a room that stays about 75 with the warm area of their cage maintaining about 85 24/7.
the strange part is that the female thinks she's a tree boa... she will not come down off her branch or the top of her hide unless i pull her off and set her down on the aspen, but the next morning she's always up on her branch. also neither snake stays on the warm side, even after eating and neither snake ever burrows. i realize that this probably isn't a problem, i just find it to be very strange behavior for dumeril's boas. any one else have babies act like this?

It sounds like the cage may be too warm. Keeping a heat gradient in small tanks can be difficult. If you don't have a temp. gun, pick one up and take some actual temps. of the animals and the spots they're sitting in.

that's what i thought at first too. I checked with a digital thermometer and about a 4X6 inch area of bedding under the hide is sitting right at 85 and another area beside the water bowl is at 76-77. directly on top of the hide it was 78.

i haven't got a temp of the actual animals yet, but i'll get a temp gun andd see where their at.

A lot of the time, mine will prefer to stay in the mid-to-upper 70's, so I suspect the climbing behavior is still a thermoregulatory response. They may be happier if their heat gets dropped down a little lower. Try bringing it down a degree at a time over several days and see if that changes things.

~Rebecca
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3.2 Amazon Tree Boas
1.1 Duméril's Boas
1.0 Boa constrictor imperator
2.4 Ball Pythons

0.2 American Pit Bull Terriers (45lb darling lap dogs: Brandy & Mara)