New Boa

[Vishoen]

I brought this guy home from work last Sunday and moved him into a 40 gal wide tank. He's a BCI and is about 3.5 years old and if I were to estimate, over 3 feet long.

Today he took his first meal at home which puts me at ease since I had been told he's easily stressed and sometimes refuses meals for months at a time. When I started working with him I was warned he was aggressive but he's only tagged me once during the last few weeks I've been handling him. Seems to be underweight for his size though, I imagine due to his poor eating habits.. He only takes mice and ASFs, but will take a couple at a time if offered, though I doubt he has been offered that much when the store was feeding him prior to my being hired.

Hoping to increase his eating, and then get him onto regular rats asap, then I'll work on getting him to start taking f/t or gassed prey.

He's got some really beautiful rainbow iridescent scales.

[marvelfreak]

Nice congrats.

[Savvy1]

I seen it on the NYC craigslist! Nice to see its in good hands! post some pics!

[marvelfreak]

I seen it on the NYC craigslist! Nice to see its in good hands! post some pics!
He from Canada i doubt it's the same one.

[Savvy1]

Sorry looks exactly the same but still id love to see some pics!

[marvelfreak]

Sorry looks exactly the same but still id love to see some pics!
No biggy. I see at least a couple a month on my local Craigslist that look just like that one.

[Savvy1]

Lmao. True that

[sweatshirt]

Nice snake (: Can't wait to see more of him

[Vishoen]

Today marked 1 week of him being home and 2 days since I fed him, so I took him out for 15 minutes or so. He didn't tag me but definitely wasn't very comfortable being handled, though I'm sure over the next few weeks he'll calm down quite a bit.

[marvelfreak]

He might just need a little more time to digest. I always wait three day myself before handling. If it was a big meal that might be why he wasn't comfortable with being moved.

[Vishoen]

For his first meal I only offered him one medium sized ASF since I didn't want to be stuck with two of them if he refused eating completely. I figured he was probably ready for handling since it has been about 2.5 days since eating (I work during the day, so I handled him in the evening) and his meal was fairly small for his size. I took him out again last night and he seemed to be a bit more comfortable, definitely settling in now.

This week I will offer him 2 ASFs as long as we have them in stock at the store, and next week I'll try getting him to eat a regular rat again.

Bit of an unrelated question, do BCIs change colour with mood or heat? Sometimes my guy is really light grey on his head and neck, fading down to brown and then black on his tail, and sometimes his head is quite dark grey/almost brown, and the fade isn't near as noticeable. Is that normal?

[sweatshirt]

That's great news :D I'm happy that he's getting used to you.

As for your question, Magenta is the same... when I first got her she was light as can be but looking at her carefully over the past few days she's gotten a lot darker... Her saddles looked grey at first but now look black. Weird.

[bigsnakegirl785]

Glad to hear he's settling in, he's a pretty good-looking boy. :D

My experience with my BCI is the same. He becomes dark for a few days after he eats, and he changes shades from day to day, and sometimes throughout a day. He doesn't get a light silver color anymore, but he can be a very pale tan at times. :) He also has a reddish tinge during the day occasionally, which I only recently started seeing. It almost looks like he's blushing all over his body. lol

[rocknhorse76]

Very nice looking boy. Glad to hear he's doing well and seems to be in good hands :-D

The next time you feed him, give him a mouse or ASF first, and then follow it up with a small rat while he's still in feeding mode. I bet he'll take the rat without hesitation. You may have to do this a few times but once he's used to the live rats, you can work on switching to f/t.

[Vishoen]

Offered him a mouse pee covered small rat on Friday and he took it right away. I stuck a little deli cup full of dirty mouse shaving in there 15 minutes prior to feeding and that seemed to get him more interested in eating. This Friday I will try a larger rat, since he should be taking mediums at least. I'm so glad this doesn't seem to be posing a problem for me so far.

[Vishoen]

On a side note, his name is now Ezylryb.

[Amadeus]

My hogg BCI has a very drastic change from his dark phase and light, great =]

op-He should calm down quickly and fatten up too

[Vishoen]

He refused food last Friday which had me slightly concerned he was stressed from handling, but he went into shed the next day and didn't move around a lot for 4 or 5 days. Looked like he had a partial retained eye cap so I gave him a soak and he shed perfectly within an hour after the bath. Ate just fine this past Thursday so it seems like he's doing well. Excited to see him fatten up over the next little while.

[rocknhorse76]

Sounds like he's doing great!