Biggle's Home Page

Welcome. This is the home page for my pet snake Biggles. For those of you who've never been here before, Biggles is a Mexican Red-Tailed Boa Constrictor. He was purchased for me as a birthday present in June of 1999. He was probably less than 6 months old at that time. Biggles has grown substantially since then. He was originally about 18" long. He is now almost exactly 8 feet long and weighs around 28#. He is a load of muscle.

Biggles still rides comfortably around my neck even with his size. His primary concern is that he doesn't feel like he is going to fall. I also need to relatively still and calm otherwise he gets twitchy and wants to go someplace else. He is easily strong enough to make the blood pound in your temples if he starts to squeeze. I can still pull him off without much trouble, though.

Biggles eats every 14 days or so. I get the two largest rats they have at the store for one meal. I've tried guinea pigs and small rabbits, but he ignores everything except the rats. These critters are about 8" long without the tail and Big has little trouble with them. I stun them before presenting them so they are unconscious when the strike occurs, which is probably best for the poor things, but most importantly they don't fight back. Rats have sharp teeth and claws and can injure a snake. During the winter he has gone as much as 12 weeks without eating. Even though his environment is kept at a relatively constant temperature, he still seems to slow down in winter.

Biggles now has free run of an entire bathroom in the house. See the picture below. Despite all the room, he still spends most of his time curled up in his cave. At night he'll come out and climb the branches some.

When I first got Biggles he had stomach parasites. It is very common for snakes to have protozoan's and other harmful bugs in their gut. With a little help from my friend Dan (thanks!), we successfully completed a course of treatments. If you've never shoved a 16" long plastic tube down the throat of a snake to administer medicine, you've really missed an experience!

Another very interesting experience was the time I tried to video tape him eating. I set up a little scene with one of his branches and some plastic vines I have. Well, we have to have scenery for his big video debut, don't we? The plastic vines were a REALLY bad idea. In attacking his prey, Biggles got quickly entwined in the greenery. Once tangled up, it seemed he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to let go of the mouse, but he couldn't work his way free of the vines either.

So I decided to help. Have you ever tried to help a snake eat? They don't think you're helping. They think you're taking their food and they get a bit defensive. Before I knew it, Big had my finger in his mouth. It surprised me, but it didn't hurt. I let him let go and soon found a perfect ring of little, tiny blood droplets encircling my finger. His teeth are small but they're very sharp. All I could say was, "Ok, I deserved that."

Some other Boa facts

Boas can reach 12 feet in length. The females grow larger than the males. Biggles is a male. The rate of growth and ultimate size can be limited somewhat by the quantity of food they eat and the space of their environment. Snakes will grow throughout their lives but most quickly in the first two years

Females give birth to several snakes at once, usually 2 to 6. The babies are birthed ready for an independent existence. Within a few hours of birth, the mother wants nothing to do with the infants. Baby Boas are 8 - 16 inches at birth and about the width of a pencil.

A lifespan of 20 years is not at all unusual for a Boa.