- I keep filming at night time so
that's why the lights are always off behind me,
but today I wanted to talk about my experiences
caring for the largest snake that I've ever cared for
before, which is my boa constrictor, Rosie,
who is about 22 years old now, I've had her for
less than a year, but she's definitely changed a lot,
and she's about seven and a half feet.
So of course there are pet snakes
that get bigger than seven feet,
there's Burmese pythons, anacondas, reticulated pythons,
stuff like that, but still, I would say Rosie's
decently big compared to your average snake.
Even compared to this one here,
which is a very similar species,
this is a BCC, or boa constrictor constrictor,
while Rosie is a BCI, or boa constrictor imperator.
But first I want to show you this dude that we have.
He's gonna be for sale soon, he's not quite there yet,
because we still want him to gain some weight,
but he's been improving a ton which is very exciting,
he just shed, so he looks really good too.
These are also known as red tail boas here,
just cause you can see their tail's kinda red.
Okay, that's not related, but I thought this was
the perfect opportunity to show you just how much
they change, because this guy isn't even that small,
they start much smaller than this,
he's not a hatchling, I forgot his age,
but here's his approximate age, so yeah.
But this guy is really simple,
we're feeding him more frequently
than your average boa, some boas will eat
every two weeks, every three weeks,
some every four, some up to every eight weeks,
but him as a small one he's much more
frequent, but the meals are small.
One of the biggest things I noticed
even just with this little boa here,
is just how strong they are, like compare this guy
to say a corn snake, or some sort of coluber,
even a ball python of this size,
the strength just is not there.
He's very relaxed right now, he's moving around,
exploring, I might have woken him up.
But once he really grips on, it's nothing painful,
nothing that can hurt you, but it's kind of ridiculous
just how much strength he has, he can just hold on
with the very end of his tail or whatever.
We know that snakes have a lot of muscle,
but he is even more so, and my reason
for mentioning that is you might have an idea
of just how strong the big ones are.
(grunts)
This is Rosie, the full grown boa constrictor.
Believe it or not, that other boa
will someday be something about this size.
Admittedly Rosie's a female and that one's a male,
so females do get bigger, but still,
you have the idea as if it was a female,
cause they start out the same size.
I can't get her head over here,
I can't even get her entire body in shot.
There she is, hi.
Okay, yeah, so this is Bowie the boa constrict-
Bowie, Rosie the boa constrictor imperator,
or a BCI, although they look different
than the BCCs and other subspecies,
which there's a lot of, the husbandry
for these two at least are the same.
And of course as they grow, they're gonna need some changes,
but she might be easier than you would imagine.
I was very nervous and hesitant getting into this snake,
I had a notice of, maybe a six hour notice
of getting this animal, and I had never worked
or even touched a snake larger than
a full sized ball python, so I was like,
what am I getting myself into?
Now I've shown it a lot, but this is an animal
that was never handled during the majority of her life.
I'm getting distracted, just cause
that looks kinda cool. (laughs)
So as always, I gotta give you a quick little replay
of how she was when I got her.
I'm at my old high school.
(gentle music)
(hissing)
Now those clips that you saw are something
that you're probably not going to have to deal with
if you get into a boa this size, because you're probably
going to start with a smaller boa.
Usually people that sell the boas,
they'll be selling them as hatchlings or newborns,
so you really get comfortable with them
at a small size instead of just immediately jumping
into something that's this huge.
Because it was definitely more intimidating
going straight from ball pythons
to this overnight, literally.
I'll get back to her personality later,
but some stuff about her enclosure,
I'm sure that's one of the biggest questions,
is just how big does it have to be.
Well it sounds like the community standard
is about four by two by two feet
for a boa this size, we opted for six by two by two feet,
cause that just felt so small at just only four feet,
again, she's about seven and a half feet,
so being able to let her stretch out almost completely
felt much better to me, people say like,
eh, they don't move, which is true,
they don't move that often, but when they
do move, I want her to be able to.
She has a water bowl on one side,
her hide on the other, I wanna add
a couple branches in here, we probably
could have made the enclosure taller
so she could climb more, but even as it is
I can add more for enrichment and everything,
and she does use all of the space,
there's a very warm side, and then the large dish
on the other, which so many enclosures for these snakes
have dishes that are too small for them to soak in,
which just really bothers me, Rosie's not much
of a soaker at all, but we do have other boas
that do like to be in the water more,
which seems to be something that they do
more than other snakes, a ball python soaking
is not a good sign, which I actually did a video on that.
But my understanding is that boas like this
might just happen to soak more frequently.
So basically, that's my mini rant,
give them some space okay, so she's able to
stay hidden under her hide, she can bask on her hide,
she can be around in the middle
where it's a mid temperature, or she can go
all the way to the coolest side with the water there.
It is big looking at it overall,
I could lie in it if I wanted,
but it really doesn't take up that much of a footprint.
Imagine, I don't know, a large dog,
even a dog of any size, would need something
the size of this room at least.
If you live in a one bedroom apartment
a dog is probably gonna be fine in that.
But you can stick a snake this huge
in something that just fits in the corner
of your one bedroom apartment,
which is pretty nice, I'm not gonna complain.
And then Rosie herself, she definitely looks big,
cause I mean she kind of is big,
but I got a video before I took her out,
cause when you see her in the enclosure,
she looks oddly small, you could just pick her up
with two hands, which is kinda what I do,
but then as she stretches out she suddenly becomes
this thing that stretches across
the entire room almost, or half of this room.
So basically she looks small, you pick her up,
she looks kinda big, and then she feels
extremely heavy, but she's actually not that heavy,
in fact she's, last I weighed her, 17 pounds,
when I got her, right before I got on the scale,
I was like, she'll probably be at least 30 or 45 pounds,
something around there, and then she was 19 at the time,
and then she's lost a little weight
cause she was overweight before, when I got her.
So she seriously still feels so heavy,
I'd still say she feels at least like 25 to 30 pounds,
not just 15 to 20 or so, so basically she looks small,
but she's actually kinda big, and she feels heavy
but she's actually pretty light.
But she's very dense for sure,
and I think it's that muscle that really
holds onto you tight, that kinda convinces you
that it's weight when it's actually just more strength.
So that's what I'm talking about,
the first tip I got when picking Rosie up
was use your shoulder as an anchor, not your neck,
because if they really wanted to,
which they would never want to but if they were
say falling or something, and they need to constrict,
they have that strength there,
where they could certainly tighten around your neck.
Now if she was constricting at full force for some reason,
and I was dying, I think I would be fine,
I can't guarantee it cause I haven't tried it,
I believe I'd be able to pry her off,
but I'm not 100% sure, but thankfully
because they're such a slow moving
and docile species, you can take your time
to anchor her where you're comfortable,
and then there's no hazards, so Rosie is a size snake
that I feel perfectly comfortable handling myself,
nobody has to be around, I don't need a spotter
or supervision or anything, or a helper,
but then if someday we had a Burmese python or something,
I think between Rosie and the larger pythons or boas
is where I cut the line of being comfortable by myself.
So large snakes can certainly become more dangerous
if you're unprepared, or do not have the help
that you need at the time, but something Rosie's size,
I would be perfectly happy to have more boas this size
and work with them all by myself.
So yeah, the power all around is crazy,
just like with feeding, now, (laughs)
fun fact, Rosie was never tong fed,
as a young'un, or as an adult even growing up,
so sometimes she just won't take from tongs.
We've gotten her to take from tongs maybe three times
in her life here, and the other times
you literally just have to throw the frozen mouse in,
or frozen rat, so luckily they're frozen,
it's not this live thing that can gnaw on her,
but it's kinda pitiful, you can't watch
this amazing snake eat, you just throw it in,
and then a few hours later it's gone.
So, (laughs) I'm glad she's eating,
I'm not complaining, but it's kind of annoying.
So, right now she's on jumbo rats,
which she could honestly take larger meals,
I'm sure she would take rabbits,
but her weight's been maintained really well
with the current schedule she's on,
with a jumbo rat, much less frequently
than we feed any other snake in the room.
So admittedly, she might actually be
the easiest animal to care for here.
I think of the husbandry as almost the same
as ball pythons when it comes to humidity
and temperatures, but I'm using the same substrate for her,
I do use heat bulbs for her instead of a heat mat,
because she does really enjoy to just
come out and sit under those bulbs during the day.
While for ball pythons they are much more
of a hidden species, they like to hide and stay comfortable,
so I use heat mats with them, but even the temperature,
I keep them both around 90 to 94 or so for both species.
So for the smaller one it truly is
identical to ball pythons, which actually,
we've used heat mats and heat lamps
for the smaller ones, but they always pick
the heat lamps over the mats, so that's something I learned.
They are much more of climbers than any other snake
that I've worked with, other than our carpet pythons.
Now, more about attitude, there's a lot of variation
between any animal, you can never guarantee
what an animal's gonna be like,
but as I learned myself, people aren't lying
when they say boas calm down quite quickly.
There are some snakes that are just always angry,
and you just always have trouble taming down
or getting them to tolerate you, or making them comfortable.
Even my black rat snake, I've had her for years,
and she still hates people, admittedly,
I don't handle her enough, but even when I was
handling her very frequently, there was almost no change.
Meanwhile Rosie went from this terrifying
beast thing, to this in a matter of weeks.
Basically I just left her chill and calm,
I didn't do anything with her for like two weeks,
and then I started touching her,
that sounded kinda weird, and then I started
kind of like interacting with her,
and then from there, once I could interact
and have my hand on her, and she wouldn't hiss or anything,
then I would pull her out, put her on the floor,
and then from there, I could actually pick her up,
and handle her like this, so it was less than a month
from going from completely angry
to arguably the friendliest snake in the room.
And a great thing is they are just so slow
compared to others, if she really wants to be
she can be somewhat fast, when the weather's nice
we let her hang out in the yard, and she moves
but not too quickly, she's not gonna escape,
and we're not gonna have some new
invasive species in North Carolina.
Meanwhile, even the carpet pythons,
which are much larger than an average snake,
they're not larger than Rosie,
but they are much quicker, they remind me
a lot of calubrids, just based on the speed
and agility and how slim they are too,
cause Rosie, there's just a lot to hold onto.
So another big thing with the big animals
is who has more control in the situation,
and it feels pretty even, not even,
I still definitely feel like I have more control
than Rosie in this situation, but overall
it's closer to even than other snakes.
Like a ball python, what can they do,
they can squeeze or constrict you,
nothing's gonna happen, they're not that strong,
they're strong for their size, but you get what I mean.
Compared to a human, a toddler
could probably pry it off of themself. (laughs)
And then ball pythons are slow,
and they can bite, but unless they bite you
right on the face or something,
you can keep handling them, you can still move them,
they can hold onto your finger
and you don't lose control, so Rosie is different
in that sense, if she were to bite and constrict,
there's a lot of power there, and say she bit my arm
and constricted, it would be kinda difficult
to deal with that, especially by myself.
Thankfully they're very predictable animals,
but even then, I'm not going to die or something.
So yes, in those crazy foreign countries
where there's massive snakes that occasionally
eats a person or a child or dog or something,
those are harder to work with,
but we're talking mid-size large,
medium large, mid-large, cause they're large,
but it's all relative I guess.
Oh no, oh no, oh no, she's unplugging it.
So, okay, here's an example of control,
who has more control here, I'm not sure. (laughs)
(mic tapping)
Wow, look at that, I regained control in minutes. (laughs)
So that was kind of an example of where her strength
comes into play, and I really just had
to be careful to not break anything.
So although it's a slow and simple process,
I definitely feel out of breath
any time I do anything with her.
I still need to make a work out video
just featuring a snake.
So I am still amazed that a boa
that I just showed you before can grow
to this in a matter of years, it's very impressive
and very cool, which that goes for lots
of different animals, but I don't know,
thinking about how many rodents it consumes
and how much weight it eats, and poops out (laughs)
over the years to achieve this animal.
So yeah, honestly, it's really not that different.
I don't feel any more or less nervous
taking Rosie out than other snakes,
honestly I feel possibly the most comfortable
even though I've cared for her
for the shortest amount of time
compared to almost any other snake
in the room here that belongs to me.
She's easier to predict, she's slow,
she tells you when something's wrong,
like if I bother her too much,
or that time I got in her enclosure
for that video intro, she started hissing
early on, before she did anything,
she didn't even move before she started hissing,
so extremely predictable, extremely slow,
but at the same time, they are extremely strong,
and pretty large, so I would happily get more snakes
this size, and it's easier than I think
the average person would imagine.
So, the enclosure takes up minimal space,
even now I have enclosures on top of that enclosure,
the husbandry is simple, I didn't mention
the poops are massive, they are bigger
than any dog poop I've ever seen, (laughs)
and she doesn't even eat rabbits or anything,
she's just eating very large rats.
So, that's probably the worst downside,
but it doesn't go missing, you always see it,
it's right there, right in your face.
There's no losing Rosie poop.
So yeah, if you're interested in a snake this size,
I would say as long as you're prepared
and know what you're getting yourself into,
I would not see any reason not to.
But admittedly, it's certainly better
in my opinion to get them at a younger age.
I am kind of a hypocrite saying that,
because if the chance came where I could
get another boa I would much prefer
to just go ahead and get a large one like this
instead of waiting for it to grow up,
but it's definitely easier when you get it small,
because you get to know the snake,
it's a more slow thing, so you can see the growth,
get comfortable with it, and then
upgrade the enclosure over time.
I'm getting out of breath.
It's been about 20 minutes maybe,
and I can feel the difference.
So it's not like a ball python, but it's not too different.
So what are your thoughts, have you worked
with animals this size, are you interested
in an animal this size, do you only like large snakes,
or only like small, what do you think?
How much space should an animal this size
even have to begin with, cause that's a big debate.
So this is Rosie, again, the little one over there
is our other boa constrictor, which will be for sale
soon on Emerald Scales, you can follow Emerald Scales
on Twitter at _emeraldscales, I meant Instagram,
and Twitter, but we don't use Twitter, so Instagram.
And you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram
at goherping, or go_herping if you wanna see more.
So I'm gonna go get a glass of water or something,
cause this is my only exercise,
and I can't take any more of it.
And a thank you to Rosie for being
a very good sport in this.
So, I'm Alex, and thanks for watching.
(gentle music)