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General Information About the Emerald Tree Boa (Corallus Caninus)
Are emerald tree boas really that difficult to care for in captivity? As with almost all questions, there is no definite yes or no answer. A large majority of wild caught emerald tree boas are notoriously difficult to establish and even neonates arising from captive bred origins can be difficult when it comes to getting them to feed for the first time. Once established though, emerald tree boas are no more difficult to care for than your common boa constrictor provided their requirements are met.
The key to establishing newly adquired individuals whether they be captive bred or wild caught is privacy, privacy, privacy. One is very tempted to look at new arrivals but non-feeding emeralds need privacy the most. The first step to adding any new animal is to properly isolate it away from the rest of the collection. Failure to do so may not only kill the new animal but also the entire collection. Ideally, new arrival should be housed in a separate room and all sanitary precautions taken such as sanitizing equipement and never going into the collection room immediately after entering the isolation room. In one boid collection, the introduction of a wild-caught emerald tree boa wiped out the entire colony.
New specimens should be caged in the most simplistic manner possible to increase the odds of observing problems such as mites, regurgitation, etc. Animals can be housed in aquaria, plastic storage boxes or wooden cages. People have used everything from 10 gallon aquaria and 20 gallon aquaria set up on its end to large Rubbermaid? tubs as isolation cages. Again, you are looking for simplicity, water tightness and preferably something you can soak/scrub with some disinfectant later on.
The substrate should be either a white/paper towel or newspaper. Having a white substrate makes seeing mites relatively simple as well as looking at the appearance of feces. A perch the thickness of the snake can be from a pvc pipe, wooden dowel or natural branch. Incidents of scale problems have been observed when emerald tree boas were kept in humid conditions and on pvc piping. With natural branches, you can run into the problem of mites hiding under the bark. I personally feel wooden dowels are great for isolation cages because they have no spacesfor mites to hide in and do not seem to cause skin problems as pvc pipes do occasionally. However, without proper ventilation, the dowels, like branches, can develop fungi which should be carefully watched for. Proper ventilation will solve that problem. Emerald tree boas have very slow metabolisms and thus do not always have the feeding response of burmese pythons. New animals should really not be disturbed to any degree for a week or two. I know the feeling amongst new owners to try and feed their animals the day after they receive them but that can often lead to regurgitation, discomfort, and an increased level of stress and a non-feeding response. Emerald tree boas take more time to adjust to new conditions. If you observe behaviour that suggest the snake is interested in feeding you should still wait a couple of days before trying to feed them. Some signs of interest in feeding include: if the snake is hanging from the branch out of it's coil with its anterior region pointed down in an S-shape, if the snake seems to be actively crawling around at night possibly foraging for prey, or if the snake is very responsive to movement around it. A thawed and warmed rodent or freshly killed rodent of appropriate size should be offered but only once or twice. If the prey is refused, give up and try again several days later. Do not risk stressing the snake out any more than is absolutely necessary.
The above content is from Corallus.com, which has the most extensive information that I have found on this species of snake. Please click the link above to read much more about this amazing snake!!