Boas in Europe - whats different?
In europe there are a lot of differences in keeping and breeding snakes and even in the law. But the philisophy of breeding for example pure Boas is a bit different. Here we breed them in line, that means if there come an import we just breed this animals, even if we don't know the exact locality of the capture. For the most snakes it means we breed just with a handful of snake or just a courple. Siblings crossing is normal in that way of breeding, but inbreeding problems are not known. So this is a way of breeding some lines for decades like argentin Boas imported to europe in the early 1980's. For the europeans this is a way to keep the purity as high as possible and will required from professional keepers and breeders. We even don't cross lines even if they are from the same locality if there are to many differences in optics. This is as importend as the documents from the parents and if possilbe grandparents and so on or a trusted source like a kown breeder like Klaus Bonny. Bonny traveled through middle and south America in the 1970's to 1990's and brougth a lot of Boas in the terrariums in germany and europe or imported trusted lines from his connections around the world. He was in germany like Vin Russo in the US and write the standard book of Boa keeping ("Die Gattung Boa" - "the genus of Boa"). But there are also kown importers like Reinhold Maugg wo brought for decades many Boas to europe.
In the whole european community you need documents about the source of your snake (without an animals is illegal), thats a bit annoying but so it is easy to trace back the lines to the sources. But we have also more regulation in keeping snakes.
The enclosures have to fit to the size of the snakes and the most keepers don't use any racksystem for permanent keeping. In particular some constrictor constrictor grow up better in enclosures then in racks. There is more possible for muscular training and less problems with vomateing. The rearing of babys even in a group will practise by some breeders. The results are remarkable because they grow stronger and sometimes faster.
And in europe the most breeders don't power-feed the snake and give them more time. Especially some Constrcitors need 5 years before the frist breeding season can start with good results. There are less slugs and almost always alive babys. Some breeders feed the snakes seasonally the same with the temperature. Breeding locality constrictors is often very difficult and it takes years to have success. I have a courple of prue Boa constrictor constrictor Trinidads (F1, the parents are born in Trinidad) and it takes almost 12 years to have success, but this is the way to breed localitys. It take patience and time and good conditions.
