My boa is too hungy

FireFoz · 10-28-03, 05:29 PM

i have a 6,5 months old boa contstrictor, female. She does well and grows really quick, she's almost 1 meter now.

She's nice and have never bitten me, but thats thanks to me.
I feed her once a week, every saturday. i feed her 1 or 2 adult mice, which are big enough for her, they are the same thickness as she is and i dont want to over-feed her.

I fed her last friday for one time instaed of saturday. Today is tuesday and she's already crowling around searching for food. Now thats not really a problem, but what is a problem is that she bites to anything that moves!

She just tried to bite (me??) or something, but she stroke against the glass when i was standing in front of it, while i was at least 50 cm away from it so there was no way she would be able to contact me, if there was no glass..but still she gave it a try...or she was trying to hit a shadow on the glass or something, i dont know.
I've seen her hitting at her own shadow too when i was looking int he cage with my flashlight..!

Now this isnt really funny i think...now she's not too large yet and well to handle, but when she's an adult its not really funny to have a boa striking at you whenever you move around..at this moment, i wouldn't even be able to change the water. Now she's not too large yet so she can't strike over a long distance, but when she's large she surely can which makes it even harder, besides the fact its not fun to have such a snake.

When i handle her, which i do about 3-4 times a week in a change to make her less-agressive, she doesnt bite or even tries to bite. Its really her instinct, its not that she wants to hurt me or something...at least, thats what i think, lol
I've never hear her slisling or something like that and if she tries to bite its when im feeding her mice.

So does anyone have a clue what to do about it? I have 3 other snakes and they are really tame i can do whatever i want with them even at dinner time.

I know its an instinct which is hard to change, but she acts like she;s not getting enough food or something...its insane since i already have the feeling im over-feeding her...!

What should i do?

10-28-03, 05:35 PM

switch to medium or large rats

snakemann87 · 10-28-03, 05:37 PM

For a 1 meter boa I'd say Small Rats.....unless she has an incredible girth

snakemann87 · 10-28-03, 05:39 PM

The striking is probably cause the mice arent enough......feed her small-medium rats(its ok if they are larger then her girth dont worry) give her 2 of them and that should make her happy.

ohh_kristina · 10-28-03, 05:40 PM

my FOUR month old boa is on small rats.
your boa should be on med/large rats by now.

Amiechann · 10-28-03, 05:49 PM

Medium rats...
A boa should never have to see a mouse.. ours start out on rat pups/pinks.

FireFoz · 10-28-03, 06:05 PM

you guys may be right...i just took a semi-adult rat seperated so i can get that one out of the fridge tomorrow morning and feed it to her tomorrow evening... its aquite a lot larger than adult mice but i used to give her about 1 adult mouse and 1 or 2 hopper-mice at a time which would be equal to 1 rat i thought but obviously its not.

hopefully she'll settle down now...

I know i can get rid of her being so alert and biting by feeding her, but i dont really think thats the way to do it because i would overfeed her, she can eat every day she's a real monster lol

btw here are some pics of here

jim mcallister · 10-28-03, 06:05 PM

feed frozen thawed not alive....???

FireFoz · 10-28-03, 06:07 PM

another pic

FireFoz · 10-28-03, 06:10 PM

last one

Yeah im already feeding dead preys. Reason i started with mice was because its pretty hard to get rats in my town...in fact i dont even know where to get them, i can only get mice here. So i went to an other town a few months ago and bought 20 semi-adult rats, but at that time my boa was too young and small for those of course. So i put them in the fridge and kinda forgot about them since i had in my mind there were way too big...but i just checked and i think she could handle them with no problem now... so gonna give it a try tomorrow, thanks

foman · 10-28-03, 08:20 PM

thats a nice boa you have there.

unknownclown · 10-28-03, 10:11 PM

very pretty boa you have there

sapphire_moon · 10-29-03, 01:23 AM

From the looks of it she could probably handle a large rat and still be fed once every 7-8 days. My 1 meter (or 3ft) bp eats 1 large rat every 7-8 days........

FireFoz · 10-29-03, 05:18 AM

Thanks, here is an other picture

I'll feed her a nice semi-rat in 10 hours and make some pictures of it too, which i post here of course

BoidKeeper · 10-29-03, 05:31 AM

Very nice colour. Boas eat rats not mice.
Cheers,
Trevor