Baby red tail boa feeding?

[Malloryashtenn]

I've had him for a few months now, he's a baby still. He's about 2 feet long, with a diameter/girth of an inch. He's been eating 2 fuzzy mice these past couple of weeks, so I know it's time to up the prey size. Hoppers look fine but he will outgrow them fast and with ordering online, you can only order in bulk. Will adult mice be too big? They look like the right diameter but I'm not sure if the length of them is too big. I definitely do not want to power feed him, but I think he should be able to take an adult mice, just don't want to over feed him. Another question, how often do RTB's upgrade their prey size within the first year? So I can kindve get an idea on how many mice to buy.. So I don't buy 50 and then they're too small in a couple months. Another question is when do you transition them into only feeding every couple weeks? I can't ever tell when he's hungry, we just feed every Wednesday.

[Snakesitter]

Prey length is irrelevant -- measure girth. For maximum safety, the prey should be no wider than the snake is at its widest point.

It is not uncommon for a snake to move through several pray sizes for its first, and even first few, years.

I'll have to defer to a boa expert on the rest.

Good luck!

[aaron_cg]

Pics would really help, to see girth of the snake.

[franks]

I have never owned a redtail but I would think fuzzier would be way to small even for a hatchling. My 60 gram kingsnake is easily downing hoppers.

[franks]

As far as prey size I would go for rat pups for two reasons. 1 there's more meat on rats so the prey size can be adequate for a longer period of time. 2 your boa is going to be big enough to be having to eat rats sooner or later so mine as well start now. Ordering online at your stage is tricky. Maybe you can find a friend or buddy on the forum who lives local and can split an order with you and help pay for shipping.

[Dan84]

I feed my 6 month old dumeril's boa by weight. I stay between 10-15% of the snakes weight. For instance, my snake weights 235g at the moment, and she eats one 30g rat pup every 10 days. Dumeril's have slower metabolisms than RTBs so you might want to aim for every 7 days.

To solve the online ordering issue, either find a reptile show and order in custom quantities with no shipping or look on craigslist for local breeders. When I get a bag in, I feed the snake the smaller rats first and move to the largest one last.

[aaron_cg]

Rats are definitely the way to go, and as long as your boa is healthy, should definitely be able to take down a rat pup, if not weaned.

As far as where to find feeders, pending where you are at, look around on Craigslist. If you're near a major city, chances are there is a breeder near you.

[Malloryashtenn]

Thank you guys so much for all the information. I'm thinking I need to invest in a small scale. As far as rodents, I live in east texas. The closest "big town" that sells rodents is in Dallas.. Two hours away. It would be cheaper to just pay the 40$ in shipping than to drive there and back. I'm thinking I'm gonna order enough adult mice to last 6 months, and order weaned rats (the next weight class up) to start when he's done with those. That way I'll be set for a good year. If I wait 10 days instead of 7, and he gets cranky after day 7, is that how I know he's hungry? (When he looks like he's in feed mode) I'm just having a hard time trying to tell if he's hungry, or when I've fed him and he's still hungry)

[Malloryashtenn]

Post denied. New posts are limited by number of URLs it may contain and checked if it doesn't contain forbidden words.

That's what it says everytime I try to post pictures of him:/

[aaron_cg]

Your post count has to get up to 5 or 10 I believe, and either way, use photobucket. Works great.

As far as telling when they are hungry, that's a hard subject. Snakes are opportunistic eaters. Offer a rat everyday, and most likely they would eat it. For my younger Snakes, I do every 7 days, then stretch it out to 10 days, and eventually 14.

[Malloryashtenn]

Your post count has to get up to 5 or 10 I believe, and either way, use photobucket. Works great.

As far as telling when they are hungry, that's a hard subject. Snakes are opportunistic eaters. Offer a rat everyday, and most likely they would eat it. For my younger Snakes, I do every 7 days, then stretch it out to 10 days, and eventually 14.

How do you know when to stretch it out to 14 days? The bigger the meal gets? I have a photobucket account, it wouldn't let me paste the URLs. My username on there is malloryashtenn, all of his pictures are on there!

[SnakeyJay]

I generally stretch to 2 weeks when they're a year old.. 10 days at 6-8 months (that's just me tho... And once they're into med-large rats it's every 3 weeks.

Personally I'd feed large mice over rat pups due to the low calcium levels in a rat pup. Their bones aren't fully formed but I doubt it makes a huge difference.

[Malloryashtenn]

Do you wait until you see them in feed mode to eat? They said when I start feeding adult mice, to wait 10 days because there's a lot more meat than those fuzzy's we were feeding every 7 days. I was told they will eat whenever, so if I feed him every week, he won't deny it

[SnakeyJay]

Very rarely will they refuse but that doesn't mean they're hungry.. They'll gorge them selfs if the opportunity is there.. The idea is," eat when it's there as you don't know when you'll eat next. " however food comes easily in captivity.

[Malloryashtenn]

I weighed him.. He's 133 grams so I'm thinking the adult mice would be perfect. So at 15% he should be eating 20G. Any idea how long he'll be eating those before having to size up in prey?

[SnakeyJay]

As he grows mate.. A few months atleast I'd say but they all grow at different rates.

[Kera]

my 10 month old BCI downs one fuzzy rat every 10-14 days, whenever I can feed him. If you order a lot of the same size and you know it's time to size up but don't want to waste the rats/mice, just feed two of the prey items at a time. I don't wait for him to go into feed mood, not really sure what he looks like in that mode lol. I just nudge him away and wiggle the rat in his face with tongs and he takes it like a champ.

[Snakesitter]

^^ What he said

[BryanB]

In my experience You can feed small mice for ever and the snake just will not grow. My preference is the biggest you can safely trust me when I say a baby red tail boa can take an adult mouse within the first couple weeks of life. A sub adult corn snake can eat an adult mouse.

[CosmicOwl]

I agree with feeding a percent of body weight. It just seems like the best way to be sure you're feeding optimally.

And this is just my opinion, but listen to what the snake wants. It may be "better" to feed one large prey item, but some snakes will prefer to take multiple smaller prey items. Or smaller meals more frequently. If the snake is healthy but growing slowly, I wouldn't push it to grow more.