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Do any of you breed Dumeril's?

SquamishSerpents

SquamishSerpents

Katia
I ask because last summer, we were "snake-sitting" our friends male Dumeril's boa, David Bowie.

They went on a 1.5 month roadtrip across Canada (SO JEALOUS) however when they got back, something had happened with their housing situation, and they could no longer care for him. They knew I was IN. LOVE! with this snake, and decided to let me keep him since they knew I would provide him with the best of care.

He is just the biggest puppydog ever, with GORGEOUS colors. I have not been able to capture his colors with a camera yet, but I think he's due for a photoshoot soon! He's got browns, greys, pinks, speckles, he's got it all.

But ANYWAYS, the reason I ask is because right now, he is housed in a 55 gallon aquarium.

He had been eating live for his entire life, and I have FINALLY managed to switch him to f/t. It only takes a good blowdrying of the rats to get him to eat them...but I hope to wean him off the blowdryer one day! But since using this method, he is eating a lot more steady than he was on live.

Now since I got him I just took their word for it that he was a male. Never really bothered to look into it, as he's a pet only, and I don't ever plan on breeding Dumerils.

I'm just concerned that if he is indeed a female, I'm going to need to get much bigger housing for him (because I assume he's going to start growing like a weed on his new feeding regime) or perhaps rehome him.

Can any of you tell me how to figure out weather he is a male or female? I've read that males will have spurs.

I breed ball pythons, so I know what spurs look like. He doesn't really have any, though he does seem to have teeny tiny places where spurs might be. I know with ball pythons the spurs can shed off into almost nothing. Could this be the case with him?

I am going to get some photos of his cloaca area later on, I just need Dave to help me hold him!

Thanks!
 
here is David and David:

june14-262010n351.jpg


and me and David:

65308023.jpg


and David playing in the park:

june14-262010n319.jpg
 
S/He's a beautiful snake. I've admired Dumerils for a long, long time. I know nothing about sexing them, though. I take them to a local Herp store to have mine sexed when I want to know for sure, or, if I got one from a breeder, I take their word for it.

So, I have several boas and a couple of pythons, and I couldn't find spurs on any of them, even though there are males in the mix: 1 BCI, 1 BRB, 1 BP, 1 GTP. To me, their undersides look the same as the females': 1 BCI-Hogg Island, 1 BRB, 1 Lipstick Sunglow BCI or BCC (I am going to have to ask the breeder which it is). I still don't know which sex my Roxy Boa is....

So, yeah. Good luck with that :).
 
What a gorgeous Dum!

Do you know his age? What's his current length? What are the dimension of your 55 gal tank?

I would say probing is going to be your only sure bet as the existence/absence of spurs and width/length of the tail are not really conclusive sexing methods. I'll double-check my boys tonight, but I believe one has predominant spurs and the other less so. Both my Dums are actually from BC breeders, Sam at SHP (who's unfortunately no longer working with them) and the other from Henry Piorun.

From what I've read about Dums they're slow, steady growers compared to most other boas, and have a very slow metabolism so be careful not to overfeed. I can understand your housing concern considering it's stated that females can grow quite a bit larger than males, however, nothing's set in stone and there are going to be larger than average males and smaller than average females. I would think a 6'x2'x2' - which is often recommended as an adult size enclosure for Dums - would be a suitable size if you're wanting to make a final upgrade.
 
I have since found out that David Bowie is a SHE! She is now housed in a 4 x 2 x 2 enclosure. I will try and get an updated pic to show how much she has grown.

She now takes colossal f/t jumbo rats, NO PROBLEM! The blowdryer days are gone :)
 
Awesome, I have a big male and a baby female. What have you found to be a suitable substrate for yours? Everything I try with my big guy he ends up with it in his mouth when he eats. I don't want to use newspaper but I'm thinking of trying it.
 
I use aspen shavings. They digest rat/rabbit bones and skulls whole.

I've never in my life seen a bone in a snake turd. A little bit of aspen is nothing. (IMO)

Hatchling corn snakes, yes, it could be a problem, considering some pieces of aspen are almost the size of the prey. But I have 120+ snakes and I feed every single one of them in their enclosure. Never once had a problem with impaction.
 
SquamishSerpents said:
I use aspen shavings. They digest rat/rabbit bones and skulls whole.

I've never in my life seen a bone in a snake turd. A little bit of aspen is nothing. (IMO)

Hatchling corn snakes, yes, it could be a problem, considering some pieces of aspen are almost the size of the prey. But I have 120+ snakes and I feed every single one of them in their enclosure. Never once had a problem with impaction.
Click to expand...

I know it won't hurt him to eat it, What I'm saying is it gets stuck between his lip and his teeth/gum. I'm always having to pick it out of his teeth. (I have seen bones in snake poop, amazon tree boa, only because I rinsed it did I notice it.) Also, when he burrows he gets the pieces and dust in his nose. I wish I could just get a bunch of nice clean leaves so he could cover himself when he wants too and I can clean it easily.
 
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