Rainbow Boa Husbandry
Everyone knows that rainbow boas are hands down one of the most beautifully colored and patterned snakes in the world ! All the
Epicrates snakes show an amazing irridescence on their scales mimicking the look of oil on water causing a beautiful prismatic rainbow
affect over the entire snake !!! There are approximately 10 different commonly named rainbow boas, the most popular and commonly
kept as well as bred rainbows are, Brazilian Rainbows, Columbian Rainbows and Argentine Rainbows. Also kept but not as often
available are the beautiful and larger Peruvian Rainbows and the smaller Guyana Rainbow Boas. All of these species show the typical
prism rainbow affect each to different degrees. The biggest difference of course is the main colorations of each species. Pictures of
these animals are available on the species page. Now on to the nitty gritty husbandry !!
Humidity & Housing
By far one of the most important aspects of keeping rainbow boas is that they require HIGH humidity within their enclosures. The highest
humidity is required by newborn BRB's which need to be kept as high as 90+% humidity and in fact due well being kept on wet newspaper
inside rubbermaid shoeboxes. Of course with these high humidity levels of course comes dreaded MOLD, hence routine cleaning of
cages is an absolute necessity for healthy snakes. Now as for adult BRB's as well as the other species of rainbows they do require
humidity but not as high as the newborns, in fact I've had successful sheds on my BRB adults with as little humidity as 70% (yes I said
as LITTLE as 70%) In general keeping adult rainbows of all the species around 80% humidity will generally give you good results. Now
the big question of how do you keep the humidity that high in a cage? First off typical glass aquariums with screen lids are out of the
question unless you cover almost all of the top of the aquarium with a piece of glass to keep in the humidity (you would need to cover
most likely at least 90% of the top with the glass.) Rubbermaid storage containers of all sizes work absolutely wonderfully for keeping
humidity levels up and with the huge range of sizes available you can find one to suit your needs. I use natural non-colored cypress
mulch for all of my adult rainbows simply because of its ability to hold humidity and deter the growth of mold. As for babies up to yearlings
I keep them in smaller shoebox type rubbermaids using the wet newspaper as mentioned above. There are many commercially produced
cages made of different plastics and such that are good for keeping in humidity and the worst possible cage to use for rainbows are made
of wood simply because of the mold and fungus potential. What do you need inside a rainbows cage ? Basically as for "furniture" you need
at the very least one hide spot a large enough water bowl for the snake to soak in and a heat source. Heat rocks are a BIG NO-NO these
products are very OLD technology and a cold snake will lay on these until they cause potentially deadly burns. There are under tank heaters (UTH)
available that are basically the next step up, they work well and the snake cannot come into direct contact with the surface of the heater.
These UTH work well with rainbows especially when the water bowls are placed above the heat source which helps to keep the humidity up
in the tank. There are also heat emitters available that are similiar to using a light bulb as a heat source, these work great for heat but they
destroy the humidity levels in your tank. These animals do not require special lighting but they do look much prettier under lighting with similiar
wavelenghts to that of sunlight. Feeding
This is a difficult section due to the wide variety of sizes of these rainbow boa species so first I'll make an easy generalization. For newborns
feed size appropriate meals i.e. if the meal leaves a small buldge in the belly of the snake that should be good, try not to overfeed although
regurge isn't normally a problem with rainbows it can happen. Baby BRB can generally take hopper mice readily as their first meal and
I tend to switch them over to rats as soon as they will take them starting with very young newborn rat pups and working up in size with
the growth of the animals. Now for the smaller species such as the Guyana Rainbows you may want to start with newborn mice or slightly
larger depending on the size of the newborn snakes. As for feeding regularity it does depend on what you are feeding for example if you
are feeding a baby BRB pinky mice you will most likely be feeding every couple of days however if you are feeding larger food items the babies
can be fed every 4-7 days depending on the animal. Females will tend to eat more, grow faster and larger in the rainbow species whereas
the males will eat less grow slower and and end up not as big as their female counterparts. From 18 months or so on you can switch to feeding
every 7 days again an appropriately sized meal (i.e. a meal that won't leave a huge lump but a noticeable lump in the animal) However if you
are feeding breeding females you may want to feed slightly more often such as every 4-6 days as breeding is extremely taxing on the females
and they need the extra size and body weight to not only produce a healthy clutch but also to stay healthy themselves.
