Hi Andy,
Very nice looking Guyana boa you have there. I love the head stripe.
Here is a good care sheet by Jonathan Brady. There are a few thing I do
different but I do like his care sheet for the most part.
I never feed any boas not even baby boas mice, all my boas eat are rats. For
baby boas I feed 1 to 2 day old rat pinkies.
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Feeding:
Feeding regimens will differ based on age, size, sex, and
sub-species/locality.
The first thing you should take into consideration when determining a
feeding regimen is the size of the boa now and the size it will be as an
adult. If you have an island form of
BCI or other dwarfish form, you should
know that in general, you do not need to feed these boas as large a prey
item per feeding, nor do you have to feed them as often. These boas have
evolved over time to take food in limited quantities and sizes and to remain
relatively small. In general, they attain sizes in the range of 3.5-6 feet.
If you have a mainland form of
BCI, you should realize that these boas grow
quickly and attain adult size early in life, say 3-4 years. Adult size is
usually between 6-9 feet although growth beyond this range is definitely not
unheard of. This is in contrast with the
BCC's which attain adult size in
4-6+ years and generally reach sizes of 6-10 or 12 feet with some rare
specimens reaching lengths of 13+ feet. These boas should also be fed less
often than mainland
BCI because they too (like the dwarf
BCI) have evolved
to grow less quickly.
Now that you have determined the adult size of your boa and how long it will
take for them to reach that size, you need to evaluate the current size of
your boa. The size of the prey item you feed to your boa should be no bigger
around than the largest portion of your boa at mid-body. THIS IS A MAXIMUM
SIZE. For
BCC's and "dwarf"
BCI, I recommend choosing prey items that are
slightly smaller than this size. I recommend this for
BCC because they have
much more volatile stomachs and generally can't handle oversized prey items
and will often regurgitate the prey after feeding. I recomme
