breeding regimes for BCI

I have had a couple of people ask me have i any tips or could i share my breeding regime,so i thought i would start a thread with hopfully not just my own regime but anyones who wants to share.I would love to see what others do to compare to my own.I have had reasonable success with my own regime but by no means does this mean it is perfect.I have spoken to many successful breeders over the years and have found that successful breeding regimes can and do vary hugely.Basically there are 101 ways to breed boas.The best i think you can do is talk to as many breeders as possible and formulate a regime that best fits you and your setups.

breeding boas does not start with cooiling and introducing animals.A breeding regime is a year round process,summer temps,winter temps and general care are all important so i will start with my setups.

This is how my setup works,but again buy no means is this type of setup vital to breed boas.This is just the setup that suits me best.
I keep my snakes in a thermostaticly controlled room which makes it easy for me to precisely control the ambient temperature.the room is heated with an oil filled electric heater.(Always double thermostate electric heaters.many times over the years have i heard of people loosing entire collections due to electric heater thermostates failing)
I keep my snakes in both racks and vivs.As the ambient temperature is contolled by the electric heater i only need to provide a hot spot inside the vivs and racks.My hatchling,yearling etc racks are heated with a heat mat covering no more than 1/3 of the surface of the tub.These heatmats are conected to matstates.i use matstates in the racks for young boas.I keep the hotspot temp the same year round in these racks.
In the vivs and larger racks which i use for my adult/breeding age animals i also use heatmats.I use day/night thermostats to control the temperature of these heatmats.I use night eyes with these thermostats during cooling/breeding which supply a drop in heat as the light drops to hopfully add a more realistic cycle for the snakes(again this is not nessecery).

There are a couple of things that i belive are essential for boas to breed.
The temperatures we use are aimed to be the average tempuratures these animals incounter in the wild.I feel that these temperatures must be provide to the best of your ability(the more precise the better).Boas are extremely sensitive to even small drops/rises in temps and may cause to confuse your boas inner seasonal clock.
Your animals must be fit and healthy and of breeding age.fat boas will generally not breed.If a boa is unhealthy the cooling process will only aggreavate any health issues.

In my experiance and from what i can gather from talking to other breeders.female boas can breed at 3 years of age but more often they will not breed untill 4 years of age or older.Male boas can breed in their second season,roughly 18 months old,but it is more likely that they will not breed untill they are in their 3rd season,roughly 2.5 years old.

cycling schedual and temps
the dates below are a guidline and not vital,what is more vital is the length of time inbetween these dates.I start to cool my animals in october simply because this coincides with the shortening of the days.I do not provide my snakes with artificial light.In my opinion this can confuse the animal during the breeding season if the hours of light are not contolled.I also belive that as boas are seceritive animals,well light vivs may cause the animals to feel insucure and therfore cause a certain amount of stress.this is not a proven fact just an opinion.

i start to introduce my males to females at the start of the cooling period and keep introducing them untill i am sure they are gravid even if this goes well past the cycling period even as far as may.I keep my male in with females for roughly 2 weeks at a time,removing them for a week then reintroducing.

2 weeks before i start cooling i stop feeding both males and females,these 2 weeks allows any food to be processed and passed.if you don't allow this 2 week period and there is food still preasent in the snakes stomack it could begin to rot as the snake maynot be able to process food at the lower temperatures.I do not resume feeding untill the cooling period about 1 week after summer temps have been reached.Over the next few months i feed the females once a week on an appropriate sized meal.I give males very little food around this time,maybe a reasonable sized meal once a month.When females show signs of ovulation or being gravid a reduce the size of the meals by about 2/3 as large meal could damage growing young.soemtimes females will feed right through gestation.others will stop for a month or more untill the young are born.After the young are born the female should feed with in a few days.

on the 26th of october i start to drop from summer temps which are
ambient 28 celsius hotspot 33 celsius
These temps i provide my boas both night and day during the summer.

over the next 2 weeks i slowly drop the temps
2nd of november will be the lowest temps
daytime-ambient 26 celsius hotspot 29 celsius
nighttime-ambient 22 celsius hotspot 0 celsius
these temps will last for 3 months

11th januarary,over the next 2 weeks i resume summer temps
ambient 28 celsius hotspot 33 celsius

then cross your fingers and hope all the TLC,hard work and nerve wreaking waiting pays off.

Excellent informative post Phil looking forward to some more input .

Excellent post Phil, in regards to the cooling period, what sort of feeding regime do you use, also I know that you said that females may breed at 3yo, is there a certain weight or size a boa should be before breeding as certain factors such as the prey size and frequency of feeding throughout the 3 years could make a huge difference.

Thanks
Marty

Thanks a million Phil!

Excellent post. Many, many thanks!

jonty wrote:Excellent post Phil, in regards to the cooling period, what sort of feeding regime do you use, also I know that you said that females may breed at 3yo, is there a certain weight or size a boa should be before breeding as certain factors such as the prey size and frequency of feeding throughout the 3 years could make a huge difference.

Thanks
Marty

ive added a piece on feeding marty.

as for the size and weight.It really depends on the type of boa,for sonorans 4ft long,for nicaraguans probably 4.5 and for commons around 6ft.Unless there is specific information avaialble on the specific locality you are planning on breeding then you will need to make an educated guess going according to fully growen adult size.As for weight i honestly dont know,i have never weighted nore do i have any scales accurate enough to weigh say a 6-7ft common.Judge them simply on build.

Thanks for that Phil, just trying to figure out weather or not to give my female common a go this year or not. She's in and around 6' and a good size, chomping down large adult rats.

jonty wrote:Thanks for that Phil, just trying to figure out weather or not to give my female common a go this year or not. She's in and around 6' and a good size, chomping down large adult rats.

is this the het albino in your sig?

Spiderman wrote: Thanks a million Phil!

Excellent post. Many, many thanks!

No probs Don,hope it helps.

Phil wrote:

jonty wrote:Thanks for that Phil, just trying to figure out weather or not to give my female common a go this year or not. She's in and around 6' and a good size, chomping down large adult rats.

is this the het albino in your sig?

Yeah mate that's the one

Excellent post Phil and couldn't come at a better time. I've been after some info on breeding regimes for boas. Would love to breed a boa of some description next season. Mind you, all my female boas are far too young yet. I need a breeding size common, so if anyone knows of one for sale, let me know :)

Brilliant post Phil
I have to say, breeding my commons this year was what made me decide to invest in a few boas, despite my original plan being to focus exclusively on retics.
It was an amazing experience. Roll on next year!
I attempted to cool my pair, initially reducing nighttime temps by just a couple of degrees, starting in October also.

My male immediately began to develop respiratory problems and we had to bump heat and humidity. It didn't put him off the job in hand, and he figured out how to lock up to the female quickly enough!

lisafay wrote:Brilliant post Phil
I have to say, breeding my commons this year was what made me decide to invest in a few boas, despite my original plan being to focus exclusively on retics.
It was an amazing experience. Roll on next year!
I attempted to cool my pair, initially reducing nighttime temps by just a couple of degrees, starting in October also.

My male immediately began to develop respiratory problems and we had to bump heat and humidity. It didn't put him off the job in hand, and he figured out how to lock up to the female quickly enough!

Lisa,common boas can and do breed readily in captivity.Although i think the better we can imulate wild conditions the better the chance of your boas breeding.Common boas in perticular have been breed in captivity for many years.There has been a natural selection if you like.The boas that breed more readily in captivity have been the boas that have been more sucsessfull in spreading their genes.
I know people who simply place there boas in the same viv each year and away they go.I presume that the natural shortining of the days is enough the stimulate breeding.Setups with less accurate heat control may be suseptable to to the natural drop in temperature over winter and again this maybe enough to stimulate breeding.I know people that do not adjust temperatures but instead use light cycles.
The problem is one pair maywell breed with very little to no cycling at all,but others wont.
I personally belive that all year round care is the most important aspect of boa keeping and breeding.If a boa is fit and well and accurate temeratures are supplied year round i belive your 90% towards producing little boas.

Not saying you don't need to do it that way Phil - or that you do need to either. Just pointing out a situation where cycling was impossible, and how important it is to monitor your animals while cooling.
Why have to keep high temps in that particular boa's viv year round - there are subtle differences according to time of yr (all of our tanks are thermostatically controlled) - but he can not tolerate much below what we call our summer temps.
Like you say, every situation will be different

lisafay wrote:Not saying you don't need to do it that way Phil - or that you do need to either. Just pointing out a situation where cycling was impossible, and how important it is to monitor your animals while cooling.
Why have to keep high temps in that particular boa's viv year round - there are subtle differences according to time of yr (all of our tanks are thermostatically controlled) - but he can not tolerate much below what we call our summer temps.
Like you say, every situation will be different

I totally understand lisa,and didn't mean to sound like your doing somthing wrong,the fact that your boas breed to means they must be in exellent health.Your experiance goes to prove what im saying,101 ways to breed boas.
the regime that i posted is the regime i personally use,others get perfectally good results useing different methods.I certainly dont mean to sound as if my way is the only way,it most certainly is not.

I can't wait to breed my boas in a few years time. Live birth is something I have[i] to experience.

This has quickly become my favourite snake. Unlike Royals where you nearly have to beg them to feed at times, these guys need no encouragement. Strike feed everytime.

Great thread Phil, fair play.

Just wondering, when you say you double stat your electric heater, which type of stat do you use?
Someone was telling me recently that a dimmer proportional could be used, just wondering what type you'd recommend, Cheers.

Im not sure the type of states we use to heat vivs can be used with the like of an oil filled electric room heater.The type i use are room thermostates,the type you have on your wall to controll the heat in your house.Im also not sure of the wattage etc you need as i get my good friend(who is and electrician) to select and install them for me.
If you search this id number on ebay you will see a type that i have recently bought 190477390943.Although these ones need a bit of installation there are for a more ££ one that you buy and you can simply plug in right away.Get a spark to check you are useing/purchasing the correct thermostate.

fantastic post phil

Nice one Phil

Good info fill. Nice one

Sorry phil lol