Shedding and growth rate

Mugwump · 02-21-04, 10:12 PM

Hello all,

I'm new here, and fairly new to boa ownership, so I thought I might be able to profit from some of the wisdom and experience quite a few of you possess.

Kind of a trivial question here...more of a personal interest query than a life or death matter, but my little Guyana BCC shed today, and the size difference between pre-shed and post, especially girth-wise, was ridiculous. It almost looked like a different snake. This was the first time I've noticed such an explosive shed-related burst of growth (might have to do with the fact that I only started feeding him rats about a month or so ago). So my question is, do boas (or snakes in general) manifest growth continuously, or only show new growth after a shed (as if the old skin is containing and compressing the new growth until it can no longer do so)? I hope that isn't too confusingly worded.

I've included an old pic of him just for kicks. Cute fella, isn't he?

Sorry about that, got kicked off my internet connection before I could attach. Also, apologies for the terrible quality of the pic.

JDouglas · 02-21-04, 11:14 PM

I have never noticed that a boa was larger just after a shed?

Invictus · 02-22-04, 02:42 AM

That's a beautiful Guyana. I think you were seeing what you were expecting to see though. Snakes don't actually get "compressed" within their scales - the scales are much more flexible than that, and you can see that especially during feeding time. They grow continuously, and shed their skin periodically, but will not suddenly balloon out when they crawl out of their restrictive scales.