New Boa Questions...

[Herpocrite]

Hey guys... I'm a new snake owner and new to this forum... so Hi for starters. I also have some questions. I just bought a 4 month old, captive bred, red-tailed boa (that's what poster thing at the pet store called it). It's beautiful, about 18" long, eats wonderfully well and is actually crawling up the sleve of my sweatshirt as I type this. I think the best thing about it is that its disposition is so friendly. When I open the tank up it actually comes out of its sanctuary and will climb up its tree to be held.... really friendly. So on to the questions:

1) I have no idea what its sex is. Is there an easy way to tell just by looking at it? Do I really have to get it probed? (sounds like it's not fun... I mean if you went to the doctor and they told you they were going to "probe" you... how happy would you be about it?) I'd kinda like to know thought, even if just so I can stop calling it "it".

2) Like I said, the thing at the pet store called it a red-tailed boa. But as I understand, there is a lot of confusion about the real RTBs (BCC) vs. what are often called RTBs but are actually BCIs. The lady at the pet store seemed to know a lot about snakes (she owns four), but is there any way I can tell whether it's a BCC or a BCI just by looking at it? I hope there's not some other sort of probing necessary to figure this out as well.

3) What should the humidity be for it? Seems to be doing fine, but I want to make sure it has the best possible environment and it's really dry in my house. Right now it's in a 30 gallon viv with bark substrate, two sanctuaries (one in a hot zone and one in the cool zone), a water container and a tree to climb on. The temp is about 85 in the hot end (air, not surface) and around 78 in the cool end. What can I be doing better?

Thanks and I'll try to get some pics as soon as possible.

Herpocrite

[Linds]

Welcome to the site and welcome to snakes!

Chances are very high that you what you have is a Colombian BCI. This is what they are commonly labelled as in pet stores, and this is the most common form of B.c available in pet stores as well. Typically B.c.c. are at least twice the price and will be have a locale attached to the label (ie- "Guyanese"). Also, captive bred B.c.c. are not as readily available, especially in stores. They may occassionally be offered for sale in reptile specialty stores, but rarely, if ever, available in general pet stores.

You cannot visually sex your boa. Your best bet is to have an experienced vet or keeper probe your snake. At that size, they can also be popped, however this is only semi-accurate. Of course you cannot falsely identify a male if he everts his hemipenes, however, if they do not, they can be mistaken as a female.

I find BCI to well with a humidity level of around 50% - 55%. This may be difficult to properly acheive in an aquarium, or any other enclosure with an screened top. What you want to be measuring is the surface temps, not the air temps. The cool side isn't as important as the cool side, but shouldn't be any lower than 75 (I keep mine at about 80). The basking spot shouldn't drop below 90. I keep mine at 95 for adults, however babies do best with slightly lower temps, as they are prone to dehydration and overheating.

Good luck with your new little guy! :thumbsup:

P.s.- I just had to make a correction on one thing - sort of a pet peeve of mine. Snakes are not "friendly". They do not enjoy companionship and express emotions, they are solitary animals that merely tolerate us to a degree, some better than others. We all too often mistake their actions for something they are not. What may seem like the snake enjoys our company, may be something as simple as security or warmth.

[Herpocrite]

Thanks... I called the pet store and they told me that the snake is Columbian... which almost assures that he's a BCI.

I had one more question though... I fed my snake on sunday (two days ago). He ate a full-sized mouse and I didn't mess with him for 24hrs after that.. I haven't seen any feces in the tank though. How long after they eat do they usually poop? By the end of the 24hrs the lump in him had gone away and I keep expecting to have to clean up after him... but nothing yet. Just wondering. Thanks again.

Herpocrite

[Dark_Angel_25]

my Red Tail usually poops anywhere from 5 days to a week after she eats depending on the size of the meal. with Boa's you don't necessairily need to wait for a poop to feed again either like oyu would with a Ball Python for example.

[Ed_r]

BCI.
You can get an idea of sex by comparing tails , only really works if your very experience and have a known female to compare to. Probing is 100%. Make sure the snake gets probed by someone experienced. Not all vets know how to probe.

Columbian usually means BCI but there are Columbian BCC but not common. YOu can tell this by scale counts, head structure, and markings. If you had one of each side by side it would be a no brainer.

Temps- Hot side 88 degrees cool side 78-82 ish. Never use a heat rock! Humidity is moderate for a BCI usually 50-60 % Is more than addequate. Raise humidity up when snake is going to shed (eyes cloud up).

Feeding- Feed One prey item of equal diameter to the thickest part of the snakes body, with a baby you can actually feed slightly larger. You don't have to wait till it poops to feed again. Some babies use almost all their prey they wont poop regularly. Feed snake every 5-7 days weather it poops or not. Snake may not eat during a shed, dont worry.

DON'T FEED LIVE Boas take f/t prey very easily.

[Ed's Boa Caresheet

[Herpocrite]

Originally posted by Linds


P.s.- I just had to make a correction on one thing - sort of a pet peeve of mine. Snakes are not "friendly". They do not enjoy companionship and express emotions, they are solitary animals that merely tolerate us to a degree, some better than others. We all too often mistake their actions for something they are not. What may seem like the snake enjoys our company, may be something as simple as security or warmth. [/B]

Hey... this isn't really a correction.... it's speculation. The truth is that no one has any idea whether or not snakes, whales, mice, or even oaks are sentient species capable of feeling love, hatred, sadness or joy. When I say the my snake is "friendly" it may be anthropomorphic, but that doesn't make it untrue. We simply don't know, and if I like to think that my snake likes me and is actively being friendly then there's no evidence against that conclusion. Sorry... just one of my pet peeves. ;-)

[Herpocrite]

Originally posted by Linds


P.s.- I just had to make a correction on one thing - sort of a pet peeve of mine. Snakes are not "friendly". They do not enjoy companionship and express emotions, they are solitary animals that merely tolerate us to a degree, some better than others. We all too often mistake their actions for something they are not. What may seem like the snake enjoys our company, may be something as simple as security or warmth. [/B]

Hey... this isn't really a correction.... it's speculation. The truth is that no one has any idea whether or not snakes, whales, mice, or even oaks are sentient species capable of feeling love, hatred, sadness or joy. When I say the my snake is "friendly" it may be anthropomorphic, but that doesn't make it untrue. We simply don't know, and if I like to think that my snake likes me and is actively being friendly then there's no evidence against that conclusion. Sorry... just one of my pet peeves. ;-)

[Linds]

Originally posted by Dark_Angel_25
with Boa's you don't necessairily need to wait for a poop to feed again either like oyu would with a Ball Python for example.

It isn't important with Ball Python's either Actually BP tend to defecate even less than BCI, so you would really be waiting around much longer than need be. The only species you really need to monitor their defecation schedule are strictly arboreal snakes, such as ETB.

Originally posted by Herpocrite
Hey... this isn't really a correction.... it's speculation. The truth is that no one has any idea whether or not snakes, whales, mice, or even oaks are sentient species capable of feeling love, hatred, sadness or joy.

Actually they do not possess the part of the brain that is responsible for those feelings, so it isn't so much speculation as it is science

[Herpocrite]

Actually they do not possess the part of the brain that is responsible for those feelings, so it isn't so much speculation as it is science [/B][/QUOTE]


Actually, as a biologist/behavioral evolutionist I've gotta tell you that it is not known where in the brain sentience, and therefore the ability to "feel" in the emotional sense, lies. It has been shown that a functional prefrontal cortex is necessary for complex planning and consistency of personality, but individuals who were either born with abnormalities in this region or have had significant portions of it removed are still aware of their own being, can postulate their own death and can certainly still feel (even if we would call much of this feeling irrational).

Furthermore, individuals with whom communication is impossible due to massive paralysis might well be called unaware or not sentient following your line of thought. The truth is that self-awareness or sentience is a tricky thing to define and in virtually any way you decide to define it it's a VERY tricky thing to either prove or disprove. I might as well say that you're not self-aware. You have no proof, and you could offer me none that would be conclusive.

I really appreciate that you have a lot more experience with snakes, and probably all reptiles than I, but when it comes to the biology, chemistry and philosophy of sentience; I'm currently in the process of acquiring three little letters which go a long way towards proving I spend far more time ruminating on such issues. It's what I do man.

Herpocrite.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Hmmm....not sure I agree. As of my last class in Animal Psych (ha ha, don't ask how long ago...), only certain mammals of certain ages were thought to have self-awaremenss (self consciousness). And sentience was just the ability to feel pain or pleasure, which all animals that aren't paralyzed have.

I doubt that snakes/reptiles/birds /fish/monerans/protists, etc etc are "aware" that they exist and that their actions have future consequences. It just doesn't seem rational to think so. It would raise FAR more questions about why they do the things they do if they were self aware than if they weren't. I believe that they are just hard-wired (instinct), facilitated by their genetic code, for certain actions and reactions when faced with certain stimuli. I think its egotistical to put one of our characteristics on different animals in hopes that they share these traits. But they don't. Sorry.

[Jeff_Favelle]

*side note*

As our last project of the year, the class split into two groups for a debate. After being taught that self-awareness was a quality of certain mammals at a certain age, and believe that to be a true statement, one group had to advocate the "right" to exterminate mentally/physically challenged people, and the other group had to defend that particular group as just a different group of people with the same rights, BUT advocate the hunting of animals. It was kind of morbid, but it raised some serious questions. I mean, do we have rights (as governed by our laws) because we are of the species Homo sapiens or do we have rights because of our self-awareness and consciousness-of-existence? Weird. Not really politically correct, and I don't suggest bringing it up at party, but it did spark some serious debate.

[Herpocrite]

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
Hmmm....not sure I agree. As of my last class in Animal Psych (ha ha, don't ask how long ago...), only certain mammals of certain ages were thought to have self-awaremenss (self consciousness). And sentience was just the ability to feel pain or pleasure, which all animals that aren't paralyzed have.

Actually, sentience, as usually defined by behavioral evolutionists and virtually all biologists, is "the state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness" which then begs the question, "What is consciousness?" Well, consciousness is defined as "the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself".

Originally posted by Jeff_Favelle
I doubt that snakes/reptiles/birds /fish/monerans/protists, etc etc are "aware" that they exist and that their actions have future consequences. It just doesn't seem rational to think so. It would raise FAR more questions about why they do the things they do if they were self aware than if they weren't. I believe that they are just hard-wired (instinct), facilitated by their genetic code, for certain actions and reactions when faced with certain stimuli. I think its egotistical to put one of our characteristics on different animals in hopes that they share these traits. But they don't. Sorry.

"It just doesn't seem rational to think so." Interesting sentence... but what seems rational to you may not be to others. If you make it a logic problem sentience is like god and you must first believe in its existence before you can prove it exists. As for the additional questions it would raise... just because an organism is sentient doesn't mean we would necessarily understand it. Heck, I don't understand a lot of people with whom I share species, gender, sex and culture. Your next sentence is much more reasonable. You believe. I do too. But neither of us have any proof.

As for ego... lol... Which is more egotistical: Thinking you are the only sentience species or allowing for the possibility that other organisms are sentient in a way humans in western culture don't understand?

Herpocrite.

[Invictus]

5 years ago (or so) I was reading in a psych textbook that NO mammals other than humans, mokeys, and dolphins were sentient and capable of feeling. Now this has been expanded to include dogs, cats, parrots, etc. which are now believed to be sentient.

What does not make sense here, is when a snake will literally go out of its way to come directly to its handler, and this is referred to as "tolerance".

SPARE ME. There are a plethora of humans on this earth who I merely tolerate, and let me tell you... I don't go out of my way to be in contact with them. If snakes are as primitive as people love to believe, it's inconveivable to me to believe that a snake exhbiting this behavior is "tolerating" his handler. This just does not follow logic, as the snake obviously is not concerned about hurting our feelings. If you had to reach into the cage to get it out, I could understand this, but when IT comes to YOU, come on... you're not warmer than their habitat, or at least you shouldn't be, so don't tell me it's because of warmth.

I knew this would happen too... we would get someone on here who DOES have a degree (in this case, working on a PhD) in biology and behavioral evolutionism, and the people who are SO attached to their belief that snakes exhibit no feelings or merely "tolerate" us would still utterly dismiss anything that said biologist would have to offer. This, to me, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen on this board. It's really sad. Especially when you take into account it was only within the last few years (maybe as many as 10, I don't know when the textbook was written) that dogs were discovered to actually possess feelings. Is it so inconceivable that snakes could have some glimmer of feelings too?

Herpocrite - perhaps you can shed some light on this. While I agree that in mammals a functional prefrontal cortex is necessary in order to have emotions, is this true of all animals? The reason I ask is because of a paper I read quite some time ago on neuroscience which suggested that many creatures with smaller brains actually have a completely different "mind map" than we do, and that the areas of the brain responsible for certain human functions are not in the same literal location on smaller creatures. Can you confirm/deny this? As I mentioned, it was quite a while ago, and this could possibly have been disproven.

[Invictus]

Further to refuting the snakes being "hard-wired" garbage... if this were the case, there would be NO behavioral differences among the species whatsoever. In fact, there would be no differences in behavior among Serpentia at all. Look at bees for instance. Here is an example of a hard-wired creature. There is literally no variation in behavior whatsoever with the different classes of bees. Every worker bee behaves exactly like every other worker bee. Every drone behaves exactly like every other drone. There is no variation based on location, no variation based on anything - they are all the same.

So if snakes are hard-wired and driven purely by instinct, why is it that I have 3 Macklott's pythons, all from the same clutch, 1 of which is what you would consider "typical" - aggressive, skittish, not something you want your kids handling - but the other 2 are as gentle as corn snakes? If they were hard-wired, there would be no behavioral differences in them at all, ESPECIALLY given that they are all siblings.

Here's another example - my female blood python who is even more docile than our ball pythons. Were she a hard-wired creature, she would strike at anything that touched her. But I can touch the top of her head, and she doesn't even flinch. I can touch her nose right along the heat pits, and she doesn't bite. If she were driven purely by instinct, it would stand to reason that her heat pits would sense the warmth, her eyes would see the movement, and I'd be on my way to get stitches. But oddly enough, she doesn't. Why is that?

Hmmm.... maybe because she is AWARE enough to know that human finger does not equal food. Maybe my 2 gentle Macklotts are AWARE that humans are not a threat.

If a snake is self-aware enough to "tolerate", they are self-aware enough to feel. Tolerance is something that requires analysis. It involves being aware of something that is happening and making a conscious choice not to do anything about it. If they are aware enough to do this, and given the overwhelming proof that there is HUGE variation in behavior among the different species, I think dismissing snake sentience is utterly ridiculous.

[JonD]

Good post Ken!