I've never bred Boas before and this will be my 1st shot at it this season...Some of you Boa breeders give me some tips...I'm gonna try my Hog Islands and Corn Islands...

It's my first season too (Bush League), but I've done a grip of research.

Have you read about the "window of opportunity"? Jeff Ronne talks about it in his breeding article. Maybe a good Q for the show this weekend.

It's a system of taking your boas off food for a couple weeks and trying them out. Now is the time!

J Stone and Jeff don't mess with temps at all. I haven't messed with temps at all and I have a pair going at it right now. I have another pair I'm hoping will just get going soon.

Yeah - My 1st year with the Bos too...Like you - I've researched my ass off so we'll see if it pays off...I have my Hogs and Corn Islands paired up now so we'll see what happens...

happended to my buddy way back in the 90's.
put two boas in the same tank.
the rest is history.
ck

I tried the no changes in temps last year and was getting jack crap. I read a post by Jeff Ronne and felt it was worth giving a shot since nothing else was working.

All hot spots are set at 90 degrees and room ambients are 78 degrees off season.
Breeding season I leave the hot spots at 90 and set the room ambients to 75.

I set timers to turn the heat off at night for 8 hours. Had every pair we introduced going at like crack monkeys.

On occassion I will go in at night and lightly spray the boas with a garden sprayer set on fine mist. That worked at well for a couple of the pairs as the male in those cages went nuts when sprayed.

Jeff Ronne turns his heat off year round but I only do it during breeding season. I've researched boa breeding to death and found what works for one doesn't always work for another .

I agree Captin, just like with BT's set up. Him and I can do things exactly the same but get totally different results. You have to find what fits your set up and climat the best.. Research along with good ol' fashion trail and error.................................................

Yessir. When my snakes were in the house different things triggered them into horndogs. When I moved them to their own building , all the triggers changed. The only difference is the way the building reacts to outside temps compared to the house. The building is more tightly sealed and not as affected than the house is. Hence the change up in the set up.

I veiw the breeding recipes as more of a base guideline to start with and tweak things along the way until I get the results I want. So far I went from 15-20% sucess to 50% and I think once a couple years pass with the same set up my sucess rate will increase.

Great info. I keep my hotspots at 90 during the breeding season too. The only cooling that happens is the a slight natural drop in the room temp but even on the coldest nights it only gets high 60's, low 70's. The temps inside the cages will vary from low 90's near the hotspot to mid to low 70's on the cool side of the cage. I like this setup because I think it gives the boas a little more choice in what temp they prefer. I think they know whats good for them alot more than I ever will.

This is what I tried at first and it has always worked so far. I do agree that a setup that works for one guy might not work for his neighbor. I've got a friend who lives pretty close and the temps in his room never change at all and hes had excellent sucess. The only thing that I would caution about is making sure that an animal has digested its last meal before you start too cool it too much.

Best of luck, Nick

With the temp range I use , I can still feed without ill effects. I have a heater & ac unit set up so it never gets higher than 75 or lower than 74.

When I moved the animals from the house to the building , a whole 200 - 300 feet away , I lost an entire season. Nothing went or took or even bred.

One thing I have noticed with my girls , once the heat is cut off , they move to the cool end for the night and move to the hot end during the day. Half of the girls that took this season stayed on the cool end during the first couple months of development and hugged heat for the last 4 - 6 weeks.

One thing to remember is when your working with almost all the CA and most insular island variants is to give them a pretty good night drop, depending on the exact locale your working with there are some REALLY drastic temperature and seasonal changes where they come from

And when you move into more northern locales like the sonorans and Nics you can go pretty extreme with your temp drops and really kick them in to high gear come breeding time!

One thing to remember is when your working with almost all the CA and most insular island variants is to give them a pretty good night drop, depending on the exact locale your working with there are some REALLY drastic temperature and seasonal changes where they come from

And when you move into more northern locales like the sonorans and Nics you can go pretty extreme with your temp drops and really kick them in to high gear come breeding time!

Excellent point.

Gus Rentfroe has some pretty detailed breeding instructions on his site dedicated to localities. If I remember right , he mentions some localities breeding on the warm up or the cool down.

I seriously cant understand why they wont break most of the "locale specific BCI" into there own SSPs.....

I mean how the heck do ANY of the insular boas or any boa from panama and all areas north fit the taxonomy as the Columbian boa...

Drives me insane...

Great tips, I had a litter last year from a female I thought was to small and just threw them together when I was moving stuff around (bush league extreme) when I had to take down an old crappy homemade rack I had. Was doing some spot cleaning and bam mom was out to kill me...then I found out why. Hopefully this season I can get them to breed when I want them to because honestly they spent one night together sometime last november and that was enough...

Jeff , I've had a female that was locked up 3 times pop up gravid 4 months later. That same female I had given up on this year. She finally swelled up with babies months after I pulled the male. The only thing I can figure is she is receptive to the breeding but retains the sperm and ovulates according to her inner clock. This is twice now thats she's done it.

Jeff , I've had a female that was locked up 3 times pop up gravid 4 months later. That same female I had given up on this year. She finally swelled up with babies months after I pulled the male. The only thing I can figure is she is receptive to the breeding but retains the sperm and ovulates according to her inner clock. This is twice now thats she's done it.

That is really cool to think that some of them will retain and just use it when they need it since I was always told that everything was with the perfect timing. I know it isn't going to always be that way but cool to think about at least.

Whats even cooler .... her first litter was 100% slug free. She doesn't bother following the rules that I've read.

That is cool as hell that she is a rule breaker :letsparty:

ive breed bci's and they copulated imediatly after a slight rest period. it was a virgin pair and i had 17 and 2 sluges i gave her a overhead het lamp and belly heat and the hot spot was 97 and the cool side 75. goodluck i plan on geting a pair of hoggs myself