Red Tail Boa feeding

I have a now five year old Red Tail Boa. I've had him about six months now. When I got him, he had been significantly underfed. He was about four feet long and eight or ten pounds. I'm not a hundred percent sure of the weight because I don't have a scale, sorry.

I started off giving him one large rat per week. He was finicky and would refuse to eat pretty often. We tried live stunned, pre-killed, and f/t. I only about a month ago figured out how to get him to eat properly. (I have to pre-kill or get f/t, then cover his tank with a towel and either leave the room or sit very still. If I don't cover the tank, even if I leave the room, he won't eat. Apparently he's shy.) Since then he's been downing rats at an increasing rate.

He's gone from one large rat to (this last feeding) five medium rats per week. I wouldn't ordinarily give him mediums but that's all that was available. Even given the size of those rats, he still ate the equivalent of three large rats.

So he's tripled his intake since he started eating in earnest.

He's also grown a foot in the six months I've had him and has put on what I think is healthy weight. He weighs about fifteen pounds now.

My question, I know it's possible to overfeed him. But..at his age how much is too much? He's not regurgitating and is acting hungry about weekly. I do wait until he..well ***** out the last meal before feeding him again.

I've read some literature that suggests he only needs to eat every three to four weeks at this age. If I did that he'd be trying to hunt me constantly and I don't think he'd be handle-able.

But I also don't want him to be unhealthily fat. Is there a definitive amount he should be eating or is it safe to give him what he'll take so long as he's not regurgitating?

Related side note: He's currently in a 40 gallon tank, which I know is now too small for him. I have an iguana enclosure that I have to re-insulate and secure and then he'll have more space.

I wouldn't gauge his feeding from regurgitation. He can become really obese without regurgitating and I would be more inclined to think he would regurge his meal if it was too big or if it was bad.

Now that he is back up to a healthy weight, I would go back to one feeding a week, a rodent the width of thickest part of the snake. You may need a larger rodent, like a colossal or another, larger type of rodent, but it's hard to tell without seeing the snake. If you feed him multiple meals during the week, it can lead him to always be on the lookout for food because he is not on a set schedule. For example, start feeding him on Thursdays long enough, and you can handle him all weekend and he won't expect anything.

When I check my snakes for "fattiness," I will hold them and rub my thumbs from their spine to their belly and feel for fat or a mushy feeling between the skin and muscle. The less of that, the better. When the fatty ones curl up, you can definitely see an increase in fat rolls.

From what I've been told in the past, the quicker a boa grows, the shorter the life span. I'm not sure if this is exactly true, but I have heard of overfed/powerfed boas dropping dead in just a few years. Not that I am saying you are, but it's just another reason why I use to keep my boas on a set schedule.

Good luck!

He's on a schedule, it's about once a week. More like every ten days. He doesn't act constantly hungry but once he defecates he's immediately looking for more food and that's usually every 7-10 days.

I was shocked by his growth rate but put it down to his having been malnourished and small before. I'm hoping he evens out soon, it seems like he is.

At this point, I may have to look for jumbo rats or rabbits if I'm only supposed to feed him one thing per week. Otherwise he needs multiple smaller animals to constitute a full meal. Part of the reason he was so small was that he was getting only one medium to large rat per week (sometimes every two weeks) and it's..less than half of what he needs.

He doesn't have fat rolls when he's coiled, though he looks fatter than usual right now just because he ate yesterday.

I think I misunderstood your first post about the multiply meals. I don't think two or three feedings in one day is as bad as say, two or three over the week.

My buddy feeds guinea pigs that he gets from some pet store. I guess that could be another larger option.

Ah, I did misunderstand. He eats the rats all at one time, in one day. Not multiple times during the week. I can't do guinea pigs because my partner is severely allergic. I'm going to look into rabbits as he's big enough for them and I think it'd take the guess work out of the meal size.

I appreciate the response.