Large Constrictor Experience?

Dyn

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
Joined
Oct 5, 2009
Messages
364
For those of you with large constrictors (retics, burms, rocks, scrubs)

I was curious about how much experience everyone had with snakes/reptiles before they got their first big constrictor.

I know most people wont like this as I had almost none. I had a boa for about 6 months before I got my first retic. I had been researching snakes and such for about a year and half to two years before I got my first snake. The boa was suppose to be a nice medium sized snake to get use to larger constrictors. The plan changed though when I came across a very nice high silver male retic in a petshop.

From what I had been reading on the forums and still see sometimes. "No snake can really prepare you for a retic." So I just decided to jump in.

He was about 5 feet or so when I got him about 2 years ago. Now he is around 12-13 feet. Havent had any real trouble with him once I got him to calm down.

I've since gotten a purple albino male and I'm looking into getting a couple more retics. Mainly 1 or 2 nice locals (Sula, Buton, anything with a nice yellow head) and maybe 3 or 4 more morphs (platty, anthrax, caramel are on top of the list.)
 

JColt

Arachnoknight
Old Timer
Joined
Mar 25, 2007
Messages
277
I had retics and burms back in the 70's and 80's. It's a chore once there full grown and you need at least one responsible helper to safely take them out. I went from a 7 ft Indigo to a 12 ft retic, lol. I'm waiting for super dwarfs to come down in price and will start those up. Much easier and manageable and sell-able.
 

pitbulllady

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
May 1, 2004
Messages
2,290
I had a lot of native snakes, including Rat Snakes, Corns, Eastern Kings, Eastern Hogs, and countless little Rough Greens, Ringnecks, Browns, etc., before I got my first large constrictor, a Brazilian BCC juvie given to me as a Christmas present from my grandfather, when I was 12, along with a custom-built enclosure that he designed and built himself, which included its own thermostat/climate control. She was actually my first "official" snake, since all the others I'd had to keep hidden under the garage, since my parents would not let me keep snakes, and my mother firmly believed that ALL snakes had the capacity to kill a person and were more than willing to do so, plus she firmly was opposed to girls liking creepy-crawly animals, which only boys were supposed to like, according to her. By the time I was 12, however, they'd given up on trying to change me or make me afraid of snakes, and my grandfather convinced them that I was responsible enough to deal with a snake. I'd convinced him not to kill snakes, but to appreciate their value as natural rodent controllers, something which he, as a life-long farmer, really came to value, and he turned from being one of those country folk who felt compelled to kill every snake they saw to a staunch advocate of the reptiles, to the point of pulling a 12-gauge on someone who was trying to run over a big Rat Snake crossing the road in front of his house! I had a few other Boas, all Colombians, up until I got out on my own, at which I was able to expand to Burms and Retics along with Boas. Except for a couple of Boa-less years, I've had at least one Boa Constrictor since the age of 12, and probably will continue to do so as long as I'm physically able to care for them.

pitbulllady
 
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