That’s awesome! I still haven’t been able to get either of my snakes to strike off the tongs. I’m holding out hope that my blood python might strike feed one of these days, because she at least shows interest, but my sand boa is extremely unimpressed by the zombie mouse dance. That’s great that your boy did it! I totally get being excited about it.
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(Unrelated species) my male rosy struck my thawed mouse i actually jumped having never fed a snake ever! Another thing that was the fastest i have ever seen him move 
he typically just moves like a sunday morning stroll.
Im thinking if i go to my 1st ever reptile show in July if i saw a great looking sand boa i may just have to take it home with me.
Ive been wanting them for years but some of the colors i saw were not impressive.
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My baby boy ( still my baby if hes an adult) loves paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls. I know by some people’s standards its not a esthetically pleasing but thats ok he loves the plastic hide i made with a hole drilled in and i put aspen bedding in for his comfort. With any kind of burrowing species its best to use light materials so they don’t get injured. Quite honestly at this point i may keep my babies quarantine tub as his permanent home he seems to like it, i dont want to stress him moving him out to a bigger home but if i do its going to have all the same things that he has. I cate more about my animals well-being than how my tank might look to others.
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Yeah, I definitely jumped and screamed a little the first time I had a snake strike a rodent I was dangling on tongs (a Cali king back when I was a kid). Nothing quite prepares you for just how fast that strike is.
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I jumped a lot when he struck. Hopefully it’s something I’ll get used to over time.
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I honestly don’t remember jumping the first time I ever fed Kai. I definitely know that I jumped the first time that he bit me though lol .
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I remember when my mangrove monitor bit me ( by accident) he was just excited for food. I remember also when i worked in a pet store in high school and one of the black racers decided he wanted to eat me
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I definitely got used to it over time. I think most people do. Once you know what to expect when they strike, it stops being quite so startling, haha.
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Oh, I still jump when my snakes strike at me. Fortunately that doesn’t happen too often. (Though just watch, now that I’ve said that, one or both of them will take a shot at me next time I put my hand in their enclosure )
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My snake has not yet so much as hissed, but I am told being bitten by a snake the size of a soba noodle is like being “attacked by angry velcro.” So, I ain’t too bothered.
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I have mostly hognoses, so sand boa strikes are quite entertaining to me. Hoggies just kinda… grab the food and shove it on down. Doesn’t matter if it’s side-ways, upside down or butt first.
My sand boa doesn’t move a muscle until you get close with a mouse and bam! I forget they’re little ambush predators.
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Yeah, a bite from your little guy definitely isn’t anything to be afraid of. Even the bite I got from my adult sand boa really didn’t hurt. It broke the skin and bled quite a bit for how small the wounds were (that was when I learned snakes have an anticoagulant in their saliva), but it didn’t hurt. It just kind of startled me. Sand boas just have a few stubby little teeth, so even a “large” female like my girl can’t do much damage.
Honestly, I’m more concerned about my snakes hurting themselves and/or the stress they’re under if/when they bite me than I am about them hurting me.
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The reason my boa wasn’t eating is because he was shedding. He just finished shedding and it came off perfectly in a single piece. I measured it and it was 15" long. I’ve been calling him Kenny, just as a joke, but it’s kind of stuck. 
You can tell how creative I am with coming up with names. Does anyone have any other ideas? Since he’s finished shedding I figured I would get some pictures of him.
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He definitely has the face of a Kevin lol
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He’s so adorable! I only just now noticed that his eyes are pitch black (or at least, they look that way in these photos). That’s super interesting to me, as my normal girl has golden eyes. I’ve also seen sand boas with green eyes and blue eyes. This is the first time I’ve noticed they can also have black eyes. I guess it’s probably related to the anery gene? I’m fascinated by the way eye colour can vary so much within a species depending on morph.
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Kevin, that’s a lot more creative than most of my names. I think I need a Kevin anyways. So when I show someone that I can totally confuse them. I might end up naming him Kevin, we’ll see.
@jawramik
I’ve seen some unique eye colors in sand boas. I’m not sure if that’s genetic or polygenic. His eye’s aren’t actually black, they are more of a blue/green, but the pupils are a solid black and take up a lot of the eye. After looking up some pictures, maybe the large pupil is because of anery, which is super interesting. I’m going to look on the marketplace and see if they are all like that.
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My normal girl also has black pupils, but they’re usually pretty small vertical slits, especially in the light (I’m sure they expand in the dark, but then my stupid diurnal eyes can’t see anything ).
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Ok, we will see!!!
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You’re right! Sand boas with the anery mutation will have black eyes. Even when combined with the other mutations currently available.
Here’s a paradox snow of mine showing the same black eyes.
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Very cool! I was just scrolling up this thread and noticed that the anery boas and anery combos all had black eyes. I’m not sure why I never noticed that before. It gives them this extra-adorable, wide-eyed sort of look. 
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