Overthinking is common, and honestly a good thing to have going on. Trick is not overreacting. But its good that you are paying detailed attention. All you can really do is provide a safe, secure home that meets your boas parameters and let it do its thing. My boa sigmas both pretty much ignore their hides and like to stretch out between the mulch and the side of the enclosure. Post feeding time the male will use the hot hide for 2, 3 days. Thats about it. Outside of my female skipping meal #2 which was 6 months ago, they eat regularly. They dont display any defensive posturing. So i tell myself they know more about being snakes than i do.
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What did you mean by “Tap Trained”? To me this implies tapping on the cage to get her attention before feeding. This could work against you later when she’s bigger if thats what your doing. If you’re doing this, every time you tap the cage for a feeding response is creating a conditioned response in your snake. When they get igger and older they can come to associate every movement and vibration of the cage as an indication that its time to feed. And the response is a snake that may want to bite every time you get into the enclosure. Ive had hundreds of snakes already and worked in pet stores for years in addition to all of the breeding i have done. I always try to move my animals.into a differnet enclosure for feeding to reduce any feeding response when the cages are opened. I had several customers when i worked in Pet Trade that used to tap the cages before feeding. AKA: lots of unnecessary bites with unpleased owners.
Tap training as in turning off her feeding response by gently rubbing or tapping
her head with the snake hook anytime we are going to handle her. No tap = feeding day.
EX:
- Tap Training 101 - YouTube
- How To Handle "Aggressive" Snakes: Tap Training and Proper Snake Hook Handling!! - YouTube
Not that mine is aggressive/defensive or anything, she is chill.
I use to feed in feeding tubs years ago. I no longer do this. Try moving a 8 foot 40 + lbs boa in feeding mode or a sud adult or adult retic in feeding mode back into their cage with out getting bit. It’s not fun or safe. All the retic I have owned stayed in feeding mode for 1 to 2 day. My big retic would have killed me before she realized I was not food if i feed her this way. Plus she could lunge 6 feet with out any problem.
For handling boas I use a snake hook and tap them on the head or body. Then I start picking them up with the hook. But most of my boas now are fine with just a simple tap and I can use my hand to pick them up.
The feisty ones I use the hook to get them out. Then with handling I just keep them moving with hand under hand to handle them. Never moving my hand in front of there face always under their head if needed. If you keep them busy with moving around they don’t think about biting you.
If you handle your boas 2 or 3 times a week they will not associate the cage movement or opening up with feeding.
For feeding I just leave them in their cage and I don’t use the hook on them. I do use the hook to open their cage and 4’ long tongs to feed them their rats.
Take care
Tom
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Yes Tom. I ageee. I have had large Boas and Burms as well. Tub feeding can be a challenge. I have never used tap training but i suppose thats not a lot different than what i have done with mine. I have a particular rubber coated glove that i keep in my snake area. Anytime i work with my agressive snakes i wear the glove, one that they cant typically bite through. I wear it on my hand and place it over their head which creates a very similar response. I dont like to hook handle my animales if i dont have and i dont like animals that are hed shy and want to jerk back when you reach in to grab them. But there are still thouse few that dont want to tame down where its still necessary. I have only had a couple carpet pythons and 1 green/yellow anaconda hybrid that didnt want to tame down this way. I have kept many imported animals in my 30+ years of keeping reptiles that even settle down. My favorites were my White Lip pythons and my Green Tree Pythons. But yes, i do still tub feed my animals with frozen/thawed unless i have to ues live. And i still do it that way with my larger animals. Thus is especially important when they are being housed togehter during breeding season or with my comunally housed snakes.
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About the Lipstick Sunglow girl. From the pictures, she looks healthy. If you want to double check if shes passing anything, saok her in a plastic shoe box filled with about 1/2 inch water max with air holes. Place it on top of a small heating pad to keep the water warm between 85 to 90 degerees. May have to leave her in this for a couple hours but thats why the water level needs to be low. Dont make her swim, but help her relax kind of like a sauna. If she has to go she will. I have had very few snakes that resist the chance to use this method to do their thing if they have to go and have never had a snake that hasnt benefited from a little extra purposefull soaking. This is more dufficult to do when you have lots of animals but dedication to your animals well being is you responsibility and sometimes we have to take an extra step ot two to guarantee thier well being.
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My only question about your set up would be if there is sufficient airflow in the cage. I cant tell how well the top is ventilated. If shes always hiding against the glass or under the moss, that may be an indication that she is still too warm. If the moss is damp, its probably going to be cooler than the ambient temp. You might try getting som larger pieces of branched with more horizontal area for her to sit on. I would guess that other than the top of the hide box, she basically has only one level to habitate which is the bottom of the cage. I doubt she spends much time on the vrlertical branches. Or maybe the spot she is always in is just her ideal temperature. If you keep a close eye on what she’s doing, she will let you know what she needs. Always on the hot spot = too cool, always on the cool end = probably too warm, moving all about and lying comfortably on either end = probably an ideal setup.
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I would bring down your two amdient temps a few degrees. And make the basking spot 87 to 88. If you have a good under tank heater on one side you really don’t need the ceramic heater.
I have only used 91 to 95 degrees temps to help boas and pythons with RI. And i don’t leave the high temp up but 4 to 5 day’s. They are also on meds to for the RI. Over heating them can be just as bad as not enough heat. In the wild they can escape the high heat. In captivity they have no way to escape it.
Here are the temps you posted.
ambient on warm side: 89F
basking temp: 90F
ambient on cold side: 79F
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Ill try that. She is currently burrowed on the bottom sitting on the glass on top of the UTM (her normal routine for a day or two after eating).
I added the Ceramic heater because I could not get ambient temps above 80 (even with the glass insulated).
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For the tub feeding its just temporary to get her off the coco chip substrate in the cage, just to avoid ingesting any while she was as juvenile. Once she is a bit larger I will be moving to a PVC type cage (looking at Boamaster cages for stackability) most likely and might forgo substrate altogether. I was using the coco chips to keep the humidity up since its really dry here but I am finding I very much dislike glass cages for temp control.
Ok so current temp setup after reducing the power of the emitter:
UTM: 90 (2" under the substrate, outside the tank of course)
Warm side ambient: 85
Basking surface temp: 87
Cool side ambient: 75
Heres an image of some mixed material.caging i built about 15 years ago. Have housed and breed adult red tails and Dumerils boas in these same types of cages. Thes are 4 foot but i have 3 foot ones i started and never finished and one 6 foot that i made. Also made a base with wheels that these stack onto for mobility. They mostly house anywhere from 2 to 4 breeder ball pythos now. Yes, insulation can be an issue ut there are ways to compensate for that. The main room these were oribonally housed in had an ambient temp of 80 degrees so the addition of bottom heat for a hot spot didnt have a big impact. I plan to replace the bottoms of these with something different. I used Tile Board on these but it didnt hold up as well as I had hoped. I can stack these 5 high and theyre prety light. I was able to lift the 6 foot unit over my head witout assistance a few years back.
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This is just in response to the tub feeding and tap training thing - I have managed to target train my Colombian boa. He sees the red paper square and immediately goes into food mode. I also use some hide boxes that make handling easier but still, never strikes and just knows that paper square. It’s pretty awesome. He also will let me do whatever while even in his cage, he’s just chill so that helps. Just pointing out it’s a possibility with boas, but I do tap train.
My phone destroyed my comment, but also my boas all so strange stuff, but are unique, interesting snakes! My Pure Sonoran sleeps with her head pointed straight up. My Colombian started burrowing after I moved him into a 4x2x2 for like 2 days, with 3 hides didn’t use any. Just burrowed.
It’s why I love boas, and pythons! Unique snake by snake, even when dealing with 10x or more.
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Your current setup is glass. Go to lowes or home depot and get a couple 1" pvc end caps with the flat side. Cut in half. Drill 1 hole in the bottom the rounded side. You and glue these to to side of the tank with some silicone with enough space to lay the branch across them using the pvc as a cup shape to hold the branch. Then take a twisty, small plastic zip tie oe a piece of coated 30 gauge wire and wrap it around the branch and through the hole in the pvc cap to secure thr branch in place if you want it elevated in the tank. For asthetics, if you feel the need to hife the pvc, you can get small pieces of fake vines or green leaves from somewhere like Michaels and secure it in place on thr ends of the branch.
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Looking right ay home! Can’t wait to see some updated pictures
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I’m super happy to see this awesome update! Definitely keep us posted.
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She finally poo’ed!. Dont think i have ever been this excited for something pooing in my house. And she was kind enough to do it AFTER i changed all the substrate last night. Stinker lol
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We’ve all been there my friend. Lol
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