Breeding age / size

[schlange]

How many years after birth or what size does a boa need to be to be of breeding age? I am buying a couple 04 boas and some new 05 (just born a few weeks ago) and wondering when I could consider them to be able to breed.

I heard that the male will be ready 1 year before the female (as she needs to be bigger), is that true?


Thanks for the advice

[buck2003]

Hi, please dont take this as gospel however I was informed a while back that once a male boa reaches approx 18mths old he hits sexual maturity, however the female needs much longer and much more weight as she wont eat while gravid. So we are talking about waiting till she is over 6ft as thats when she'll put on more and more weight. Some people try to power feed to get a female to breeding size asap by feeding oversized food items or feeding too regular however this just leads to an obese boa that will have slugs and/or mutated babies instead of nice healthy baby boas. To be honest I think most people wait till the female is over 7ft. As I said I'm no breeder and not 100% on this. Hope this helps a little, Buck

[schlange]

Thanks Buck. That is good info to have and I agree, I would not powerfeed to just breed early. How long does it take a boa to hit 6-7 feet (is that 2 years, 3 or 4)? If you feed a proper sized food item every 2 weeks?

[buck2003]

Hi my female is 5ft and I was told about 3yr old when I got her. I think it all depends on husbandry and feeding and again down to the individual snake.

[herp_chick]

For baby boas, you want to feed at least every 7 days. I do that until they are a year old, then go to every 7-10 days after that. Once they are 3 years or so, then I usually go to 14 day feeding schedule.

[schlange]

Ty herp_chick.

That advice will help. given that feeding schedule, how long until they are breeding age?