Wow, that’s really a huge experience. Can I ask how old your oldest snake was?
I am not from the US, but from Poland. I don’t like polish online forums and communities… that’s why I came here. People are a bit mean, as if they are just trying to point out mistakes and lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to basic questions, and it’s really hard to find out the details on your own.
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I would have to find her birthday date when I get home. I got her on October 27 2022 and she was a few months old. She comes from a line of high picks and purples and her morphs help that too.
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My oldest boa right now is 18 years old. Her name is Aphrodite she is a Northern Brazilian BCC. My first boa lived for 18 years, too. I got her as a newborn baby when I was 11 years old.
Unfortunately, I killed her as I did not know about quarantining a male boa I got to breed her to. He ended up having IBD, and he die with in months. Bo lived for 1 1/2 years with a lot of care and meds. If I never got that male, I am sure Bo would have lived for 25 to 30 years.
I do like MM forum as everyone really tries to help rather than complain.
This is an old post I posted many years ago on a different forum about helping new people out.
Everyone remember - we were all new to this once…so don’t get all upset with a newbie, just answer their questions best you can. I bet most of you even thought you would have no trouble handling big snakes or any large reptiles. Most of you would get defensive if someone told you that you knew nothing and should not own a retic or a boa. If that was the case, I should have never gotten my first boa when I was 11 years old. I didn’t know anything about boas accept that I loved the way they looked. It took me some time to figugher out how to care for my first boa, but I did it, and she lived for 18 years.
One of the most important things we can do for our reptiles and ourselves is to educate ourselves on their care and proper handling of any reptile. Big constrictors are very powerful snakes. I guarantee they are stronger than most people think. I trust all my big snakes, even around my kids. But my kids and I also respect them even more than we trust them. I always thought that I would be able to pull a snake off of me if it ever tried to constrict me. After handling a couple of my large constrictors, who are only holding on to me to feel safe, I’m convinced I would never be able to pull one of them off of me, if it’s intent was to kill. Animal Planet reported a test that determined an 18-foot-long snake applies pressure equal to about 12 pounds per square inch. That doesn’t sound like a allot per inch, but if you figure your arm is about 12 inches in circumference, and a snake that is 6 inches wide wraps around your arm once, that’s 864 lbs of pressure on your arm with one coil. Assuming most snakes coil at least 3-4 times, do you think you could get enough people in the same room to pull it off of you? I don’t have that many friends and my wife would rather collect the insurance money. LOL
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Riley your boa Sherbert was born 4/10/22
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Looking good into her golden years.
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Thank you 
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@z-a-r-i-n-a she is 2 years 3 months…
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I think it’s very difficult to understand the true nature of boa constrictors until you experience it firsthand and over a long period of time. It’s very hard to prepare well before you start experiencing these things in reality… I read for hours and watched various materials before I decided to buy her, and I still have a lot of unanswered questions in my head. I was surprised by her strength, and she’s still small. Can a snake’s temperament change? She is very calm and gentle, and I hope she stays that way, although I recently saw someone on a Facebook group write that they had a very docile snake whose temperament suddenly changed drastically and became really aggressive. That post was quickly deleted. I had previously read that boas tend to become more gentle with age.
IBD is a terrible disease… Recently, one of the larger breeders in Poland has been accused of selling sick snakes. Sometimes I obsessively watch my snake’s movements because she sometimes does this weird “right - left - right - left” head movement, and I don’t know if that’s a natural movement for a snake or if something is wrong. However, she has never stargazed or done any other strange things.
@Lumpy Can I ask how you are feeding her now?
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That’s definitely not unique to Polish forums. Most American/international forums are the same. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t use traditional social media. So many online communities seem to display the worst and most tribal aspects of human nature, and the older I get, the less patience I have for any of it. People don’t know what they don’t know, and if those with the knowledge and experience to educate newer folks are unwilling to extend a bit of kindness and empathy and help educate people, it just breeds more ignorance. Being high and mighty to someone less well-informed than you might give you an endorphin rush and make you feel superior…but that’s literally all it does. It does nothing good for the community, and it doesn’t help new keepers or their animals. /rant
But this community is really wonderful. Just a nice group of people who love reptiles and who want to help others provide good care to their animals and enjoy the hobby. Like you, I don’t really have anyone in my life who loves snakes the way I do, so it’s really great to have a kind and welcoming online community where I can ask questions and talk about my animals without feeling like a freak for loving them. 
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I think it’s safe to say with proper care and handling your boa is only going to become more docile with age. You’ll learn to “read” your boa very well with time, too.
Accidents do happen but you can reduce them by training your boa to know feed vs handling time. It’s usually done with a snake hook or something smooth and rigid that you can gently reach in and rub the head of the snake before pulling them out for handling. Do that every time you go to handle or change water, and you’ll see them snap out of feed mode once you rub their head with the hook.
Loud nearby construction(to the point of vibrations) , fireworks, couple days after large meals and sometimes when in deep shed (where they can’t see well do to cloudy eyes) are the times I’ve noticed my boas being a little more agitated.
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@jawramik I don’t understand this, where it comes from. I feel best inside when I have good and pleasant relationships with other people. I also like the feeling when I manage to help someone. Yes, this community seems different; I thought so right away when I started reading various threads. Although I get the impression that the forum is not very very active.
@smite I’m glad about what you wrote! That means my girl will be as nice as she is. My boyfriend had a neutral attitude towards us having a snake. We already have a bearded dragon and spiders, which excite him more, but when he met her and saw how nice she is, he told me it was a very good decision.
And regarding the hook, I use it every time I do something with her. Once, I didn’t use it because I thought it was just a quick water change, and I didn’t want to take off her hide to touch her with the hook. I thought she wouldn’t notice because she was coiled up somewhere, and then I saw her slowly come out of her hide flicking her tongue. I wonder if they really remember that touching means no food. Have your boas ever mistaken and wrapped around your hand?
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I’m not sure whether they remember or if it’s just the fact that prey wouldn’t go rubbing their head so it pulls them out of that mode. Whichever it is it works great.
I have been struck from a food response a few times before. I had a boa named Artemis, around 2007, that wrapped my hand up good. She wasn’t even that big but boy was she determined 
She caught my thumb as soon as the tub slid open and wrapped my hand up. A few minutes in I realized she wasn’t snapping out of it so I filled up a sink in the garage and submerged her head. That got her to let go.
I got tagged by my large VPI checking temps. She’s about 6’ and 9lbs. I couldn’t see her in her hide and she nailed my hand when I went to temp check the cool end. Scared the **** out of me and I instinctively pulled back. This pulled her out of the cage and she tagged my thigh. It was very bizarre how driven she was to have gone for a second hit like that. I found the reason that evening doing laundry… I had left my garage door cracked open in the evening and a young possum had come into the garage and hid in a laundry basket that was a couple feet from the boa cages. She must have been smelling that little thing! So it was no wonder she reacted that way, in hindsight.
Anyway, I don’t tell those stories to scare you or anyone else. It was scary in the moment, more nerves than anything else. There was blood coming through my jeans but when I pulled them down it was a challenge to even find the puncture marks. No really pain from the bites, its more of a jump scare feeling. My hand was a little worse because I had ripped it back but luckily I didn’t pull any of her teeth out, I would have felt horrible.
There is a natural fear of getting bit by a snake but in all honesty I’d rather handle an agitated large snake than a mean cat or chihuahua any day, haha. Most new keepers are very nervous about getting bit because it hasn’t happened yet. It all reality, it’s really not that bad and your nerves are almost better once you get an accident out of the way.
Hooks werent used in both of those cases and I wasn’t paying attention like I should have been.
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Small rat, every 3 weeks…F/T from tongs
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@smite For now, I only use the hook for touching her head. I pet her and then take her out with my hands. I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but it seems difficult to take a snake out with just the hook. Is that wrong? Stories like these are needed; I don’t consider them scary. I think that deciding to own a snake means you sign an invisible pact where you agree that you might get bitten… That’s just the nature of things. I’ve seen various snake bites and they don’t look as scary as the number of teeth in those little jaws. Besides, you’re right, many other pets can bite too. When I was a teenager, our dog bit me in the face, and I had stitches. He was with us for 9 years and had never bitten anyone before. Today, there’s almost no trace of it, but like you said, many animals have teeth and sometimes things happen.
I wonder if all boas do the same. I observed her while eating and when she’s done constricting, she releases the prey and starts sniffing it and the surroundings. Once it took her a good few minutes before she started eating. Why do they do that? The sniffing of the surroundings seems particularly peculiar.
@lumpy, did you always feed every 3 weeks or did you start doing that when she got bigger? I feed mine mice that are 30-40g, but I’m wondering if I could also buy newborn rabbits. They’re of a similar weight, and it seems like they might be better for digestion because they don’t have fur and tails.
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Sounds perfect, that’s exactly how I go about using a hook. Mine is so flimsy it couldnt even support a large boa. Exactly, I groomed dogs for years and while at grooming school one of the students got pretty messed up. I’ll take a boa bite any day.
Sounds like mine, I believe they are sniffing for the mouth so they know where to start. The ones that get eaten backwards make me wonder just how bad that rats breathe was 
Careful with furless prey items, can be very messy on the way out with nothing to hold it all together.
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It may be that she is looking for the mouth, but sometimes the sniffing was so far from the mouse that I really wondered why she was doing it.
Ooops, that’s a very good point, I didn’t think about that… And could the fact that she started shedding have any impact on her poop? I thought she would go now, but she just lies all the time in the warm hideout…
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@z-a-r-i-n-a I personally would not feed rabbits. Your boa should never need them. Originally, I fed every two weeks, but I fed a size smaller than most people do at that rate. When she was a year, I took it out, if I remember correctly, to three weeks and keep her a size smaller then normal.
The fur and the tails is actually really good roughage for the boa. Also, the fully calcified bones and developed organs of the mice are a lot better for the boa compared to something that has not been fed anything but milk.
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I like feeding rabbits to my adult boas and retics. Rabbits, in my opinion, are much better food for my boas. However, some boas I have will not eat rabbits.
Aphrodite will eat a 3 lbs. rabbit. and be good for a month. Tigger my retic would eat a 10 lbs rabbit.
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Sounds like you’re using the hook perfectly, that’s pretty much what I do for my snakes with high food drives. If you don’t have a hook handy, you can also use something like a roll of paper towels. Really anything that just puts some distance between the snake and your hand.
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