brazilian rainbow boas???

[yankeefoxtrot]

I have been lookin into getting one of these gorgous snakes for a while now and by the end of the year i should be ready for my own.

I would like to know everything i can about them before i buy. What is best to keep then in, rubber, glass, custom??? How hard they are to care for and such. ANY information would be really great and helpfull!


Lucas out

[LdyDrgn]

Rubbermade totes are best because they keep humidity well. BRB's require high humidity. Cypress mulch makes a good substrate for them, but feed in a seperate tote. Warm side about 85, no higher than 88! Any warmer can and will kill them. Cool side about 75. These guys can be finicky eaters and sometimes difficult to et them to eat at all. Whenever you have trouble like this, you have sometimes have to start from scratch with a live mouse (fuzzies are good).

I'm only wondering why this is in the Corallus forum... LOL!

[yankeefoxtrot]

heh cus i know nothing about them!!! sorry my bad hehehe

[C.Marshell]

LOL...Honesty is the best policy they say!..and makes for pretty good humor as well.

[yankeefoxtrot]

Man oh man, who feels like an a$$. Dont think about it to much.

Lucas out

[Linds]

As mentioned by LdyDrgn, these snake need high humidity (80% or higher) and cooler temps (75-85). However, I would have to disagree on the feeding part. These snakes have a reputation for being voracious feeders, and are extremely easy to get started as babies. Babies may even take prekilled right off the bat instead of having to start out on live like most boas... usually born striking at an and all movement around them it doesn't present a huge challenge for them. Though babies are typically high strung, I find them to be the easiest snakes to acclimate to handling, there is no reason that you shouldn't have a totally manageable animal as it matures with regular handling as a baby. Rubbermaids are the best for maintaining humidity, and adults do well in custom enclosures... glass tanks are a no-no for this species. It's easy to maintian a humid environment with these guys. Due to being swamp snakes, these guys are practically impervious to scale rot so it's fine to keep the substrate damp or even wet. I just keep mine on wet newspaper, if you have loose layers they will go in between them and hide out there. When mine were babies I kept them on sphagnum moss or carefresh. Although sphagnum worked well... the dark natural substrates are very difficult to keep clean, BRB's have a lot of liquid urine and it is impossible to spot in the dark substrates. Carefresh worked well, and was much easier to spot clean... you just want this substrate to be dampened, not wet. Loose substrates shouldn't be fed on.

Here's a caresheet...
http://www.ssnakess.com/caresheets/brb/brb.htm

Great snakes... definitely one of my favourite. As long as humidity and temps are right these are pretty well trouble-free captives

[Linds]

Lucas,
Please keep don't not post multiple threads in different forums. I left this one because it had the most replies, and I have copied the reply from the thread which has been deleted from the General Boa Forum.

Written by BOAS_AND_PYTHONS:

Hi there Lucas:

BRB' s are so cool and great and so easy to take care of as long as you follow the basics. I use rubbermaid tubs from show size boxes to large sweater boxes till they are adults, then pass them over to my custom cages I built. In the smaller cages I use paper towel as substrate or newspaper in bigger boxes. I keep a small but big enough for the boa container full of wet spagnum moss and another same size full of water for them to drink and swim in. They eat every week 1 - 3 adult frozen thawed mice that I warm up under a lamp for a few minutes so they think there eating live, works great. BRB' s as babies will bite once in a awhile but its nothing really with regular handling you' ll get past that and so will they.

Temps I use are 81 - 88 F from night to day and on the small ones I only use human heat pads on low setting underneath the boxes. As adults they get radiant heat panels with all my custom cages have built in. With the water and moss on different sides and opposite corners humidity rises well and meet there requirements. Young BRB really need this constant humidity its is really important and this cage set up works 100%. Its easy to clean and observe your animal.

Costs are as follows:

BRB............................................... .........................200 - 400$
Tupperware Tubs.............................................. .....8 - 17$ Walmart
Paper Towel or Newpapers....................................penni es
2 small tupperware tubs for moss and water........5$ each
Moss.............................................. ........................20$ Petland
Water............................................. ........................free
Human heat pad............................................... .....22$ Walmart

I use the largest and put 4 - 6 tubs on it or 4 - 6 animals.

Get yourself a monitor for humidity and temp as well, I use the small 30$ ones at Radioshack.

Well I hope this helps and if you need more just email me.

Cya................BRB' s are great boas to own.

[LdyDrgn]

Linds, Clif at the EBV breeds tons of BRBs. Many have had to go back to him over time for refusing to eat. He gets them eating again by offering live mouse fuzzies. Admittedly, I do not keep these myself (YET!) but I have spoken to many keepers/breeders about them.

[Linds]

Strange, in my personal experiences working with them, all my research over the years, and all the times I have spoken with Jeff Clark (The BRB Guru) and Tony Basica (also breeds mainly BRB's), that's the first time I have ever heard of them being anything other than total piggies... as well as all the posts by Mr. Favelle on these forums show off the appettite these buggers are born with... Is it not possible these are novice keepers going back to him, as often beginners make mistakes in keeping these snakes due to their different humidity/temperature requirements?

[Jeff_Favelle]

Linds is on the money.

I've had well over 100 babies over the last 3 seasons (and maybe 100 babies this season alone!!) and babies NEVER refuse food. Linds is definitely correct! 99 out of a 100 will take a frozen/thawed fuzzy 1-3 days after their first shed. After that they take off.

Problems occur when you keep them wrong. Too hot (usually), too dry (always), too cold (rare) too much space, not leaving the prey in over night bla bla bla........ All those things will cause them to not eat (and/or regurge).

To reiterate:

Baby BRB's do NOT refuse food. They are machines. If you're snake is refusing food, it either hasn't had its first shed, is sick, or you're keeping it all wrong.

If I was EBV, I'd be pissed that people are returning my perfectly healthy snakes that I've got well started and are perfect in every way.

[LdyDrgn]

*shrug* I wasn't referring to babies eating right off the bat. I was talking of a bit later....

I'm happy that you have never had problems with them. But even after going over husbandry with them and all has been correct, they still couldn't get them to eat. I was only relaying what I have heard from other keepers.

I used to think people were crazy when they were having probs with their Royal pythons, too. Because for the longest time mine were pigs and I had no trouble switching from mice to rats.... Some are the exception to the rule, I suppose....

[Jeff_Favelle]

I wasn't referring to babies eating right off the bat. I was talking of a bit later

They would eat right away, then when in the new person's care, they stopped eating?

What would that tell you? Tells me incorrect husbandry. Baby snakes don't eat fine right away and then just stop. ESPECIALLY not Brazilian Rainbows! Trust me.

[rustie]

99 out of a 100 will take a frozen/thawed fuzzy 1-3 days after their first shed.

Problems occur when you keep them wrong. Too hot (usually), too dry (always), too cold (rare) too much space, not leaving the prey in over night bla bla bla

1 i was told that my brb's hadnt had their first shed but i fed them anyways. was that a mistake?

2 could you define too much space? this isnt a problem for me but i was planing on moving my brbs to a rather large display custom. or do you mean too big of a feeding space?

btw you guys are the most help ever...
keep the good advice coming...
linds thanks about clearing up that peat confusion i had. now they are on paper towels, and doing great.
jeff ive still got them in a big rubbermaid divided (soon to change)
but ur right on about there cost... dirt cheap.

thanks all

[rustie]

oops those quotes didnt take, please pardon my newness

[BOAS_N_PYTHONS]

YANKEEFOXTROT:

There is a load of info here and all these previous replies to your post. Great information was explained here.

Good luck.................Cya.