Selective Breeding for Surface Activity in the Kenyan Sand Boa
A father-daughter, multi-year behavior study. We are not waiting on a handout: we built the system ourselves, we have paid $6,431.29 out of our own pocket, and we keep building every week. Backing the fund brings home the rest of the founders.
Support helps pay for the animals, observation equipment, housing, food, substrate, cameras, data infrastructure, website hosting, future-generation housing, and other direct project expenses.
This project is not being built as a conventional reptile-breeding business.
Our goal is to learn, document, and keep the project running long enough to follow the question across generations.
Can a Sand Boa Be Bred to Choose the Surface?
The question
Kenyan sand boas spend most of their lives under the sand, yet some seem to come up far more than others. Is that a stable, repeatable trait, and could it respond to selective breeding the way physical traits do?
Why it has not been answered
The differences are anecdotal, because individual snakes are rarely watched around the clock for long. Answering it takes cameras over every tub, identical conditions, and years of records.
How we will know
First prove the cameras can measure surface time reliably. Then write down the measurements and selection rules before any breeding. Then compare offspring across generations, and publish the answer whichever way it goes.
Straight Into the Project
- Observation equipment
- Founder animal acquisition
- Housing and environmental controls
- Food and husbandry supplies
- Cameras and data storage
- 3D-printed project equipment
- Website and streaming infrastructure
- Future adult and breeding housing
- Future hatchling observation housing
- Veterinary contingency
- Project documentation and education
Thank-Yous for Backers
See the tiers in the Founders’ Fund below. They include:
- Your name on the supporter board on this site
- Project sticker packs
- A 3D print of a founding snake, patterned after the real animal
- Sponsoring a founding snake
- Naming a founding snake
- Naming a founding family line
- Business and corporate sponsorship
- Project updates
Animals active in the study are never sold. Animals that leave it (a founder removed for health or welfare, or offspring not kept for the next generation) may be placed with a suitable keeper, sometimes for a price, subject to applicable law, welfare, and safe transport. Every placement is logged in the books below, and every dollar goes back to the project.
Build the Founding Generation.
Rack 1 is built, its cameras are recording, and our first founders are in quarantine, live. The tracking software is a working prototype, not yet validated. The Founders’ Fund pays for the project at full scale, right here on our site. Every dollar fills the milestones in order, founders first, because all 20 have to come from the same birth season.
The founders
24 Kenyan sand boas from 20 unrelated lines plus 3 controls, all from the same birth season, with shipping and an arrival vet check.
$0 of $1,966.04 needed from backers
Reserve from the 2026 litters by spring 2027. After that, the study waits a year for the next cohort.
Cameras and the full rack
A camera over every pair of tubs, the rest of the rack, the network, and the live stream. Cameras can go in a pair of tubs at a time.
$0 of $3,573.67 needed from backers
Year 1 care
Food, substrate, electricity, the vet reserve, and the 10% for whatever breaks.
$0 of $5,092 needed from backers
Back the Fund
Chip In
- Five is the 2020s dollar: after card fees, $5 does real work where $1 barely covers the fee
- Our thanks, and backer updates as the rack and the founders come together
Founder Print
- A 3D print of one of the actual founding snakes, patterned after the real animal
- Sticker pack and your name on the board
Sponsor a Founder
- Sponsor the founder of your choice and get a custom 3D print of that specific snake, patterned after the real animal
- Your name on its page as its sponsor, and a heads-up when it is live on camera
- Sticker pack and your name on the board
Name a Founder
20 available- Give a founding snake its first name (family-friendly, approved by the project); it stays in the study
- A name tag on its tub, in view of the camera in every live view and clip
- “Named by” on its page, a print of the snake, and a certificate
- Optional: set its chat voice (cheerful, shy, silly, grumpy-but-lovable…) for when the snake chat launches
- Sticker pack and your name on the board
Name a Family Line
10 available- Name one of the founding family lines (“the Gonzalez line”)
- The name follows that line’s descendants through the study
- Prints of the line’s founders, plus everything in Name a Founder
Backing an animal never buys it: animals active in the study are never sold. Founders are bought with the fund, so choosing, naming, and prints happen after they arrive and each one has a page and a pattern photo. We will email you when it is your turn.
Not ready to back it?
Follow the build for free. We email when new founders arrive, when they move onto the rack, and when we have results. A few emails a month at most.
Support Every Month
Keeper
- Your name on the supporter board as a monthly Keeper
- A monthly backer update from the rack
Feeder
- Keeps one founder in food, substrate, and cleaning supplies
- Everything in Keeper
Care Sponsor
- Covers a full year of care for the founder of your choice
- Your name with its care sponsors on its page
- A quarterly update on your snake
- Everything in Keeper
Monthly support carries the care that never stops: food, substrate, heat, and the vet. Cancel anytime from the link in your receipt or the "Manage monthly support" link at the bottom of every page.
Sponsor the Project
Small Business Sponsor
20 available- Your logo and link on the animal pages, rotating with other sponsors
- Your logo and link in the sponsors section on the support page
- Runs for 2 years from when your logo goes up
- A Stripe invoice for your business records
Corporate Sponsor
10 available- Your logo and link on every animal page, always shown, no rotation
- Top placement in the sponsors section on the support page
- Thanks by name in project videos and backer updates
- Runs for 2 years from when your logo goes up
- A Stripe invoice for your business records
Checkout asks for your business name and the website to link to, and we email you for your logo. Every sponsor is reviewed to keep this a family-friendly science project: if yours is not a fit, we refund you in full. Sponsors are always labelled as sponsors and never touch research results.
One Round at a Time.
Round 1: The Founders’ Fund
The observation rack with a camera over every pair of tubs, 24 founder snakes from 20 unrelated lines plus 3 controls, and their first year of care.
Round 2: Breeding
Choosing the first pairs, an adult breeding rack, housing and cameras for the first litters, and replacement founders to keep all 20 lines strong.
Round 3: The Research Facility
A dedicated outbuilding so the study can run for years across generations.
The Books Are Open.
We are pressing on either way. So far our family has put in $6,431.29, and none of it is ever paid back.
Every dollar in and every dollar out. The budget is priced at full, regular cost with a reserve. Every purchase is posted below, including what our family has already paid for ourselves.
| Round 1 budget | Budget | Paid by our family | Spent from the fund | Still needed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Observation rackFrame, heat, lighting, two thermostats, tubs, rack battery backup | $2,125 | $1,146.33 | $0 | $978.67 |
| Cameras10 twelve-megapixel cameras (9 to buy plus a spare) and printed mounts | $1,250 | $0 | $0 | $1,250 |
| Network and dataPoE switch, cabling, sensors, a second backup drive, off-site backups | $900 | $160 | $0 | $740 |
| Local observation serverThe on-site server that records every camera and passes footage to the AI analysis server, with battery backup (UPS) and a 4 TB recording drive | $345 | $345 | $0 | $0 |
| Dedicated fiber line3 Gbps up and down, used only by the cameras, server, and live stream, 1 year at $115/mo | $1,380 | $1,380 | $0 | $0 |
| Live streamingStreaming server at the full $14/mo ($168 a year) for 2 years, plus an overflow and backup reserve | $750 | $145 | $0 | $605 |
| 24 founder snakes20 unrelated lines plus 3 controls, overnight shipping, arrival vet check and fecal test | $4,800 | $2,833.96 | $0 | $1,966.04 |
| Year 1 careFood, substrate, cleaning supplies, electricity, veterinary reserve | $3,700 | $133 | $0 | $3,567 |
| Contingency10%, because something always breaks | $1,525 | $0 | $0 | $1,525 |
| Round 1 total | $16,775 | $6,431.29 | $0 | $10,631.71 |
Our family is the project’s first benefactor. What we have paid is our contribution and is never paid back from the fund. Backers’ money only goes to what is still needed.
Every Purchase
| Date | Item | Paid by | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Coco earth | Our family | $30 |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Sand substrate (16 x 40 lb bags)$6 each | Our family | $96 |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Surge-protected power strips | Our family | $65 |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Water bowls and hides | Our family | $50 |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Tubs (20)$10 each | Our family | $200 |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Lighting system, five 4 ft UV fixtures | Our family | $150 |
| Sep–Oct 2026 | Heat tape (5 runs) with connections, aluminum tape, wood panel base | Our familyRedline | $300 |
| Sep 2026 | Dedicated fiber line, 3 Gbps up and down, 1 yearAnnual cost, billed $115/mo. Used only by the cameras, server, and live stream. | Our family | $1,380 |
| Sep 2026 | Rack frame | Our family | $200 |
| Oct 2026 | Founder snakes (6)Shipping included, after a $230 discount | Our family | $1,475 |
| Oct 2026 | Founder snakes (4) | Our family | $270 |
| Oct 2026 | Founder snakes (3)Shipping and tax included | Our family | $491.96 |
| Oct 2026 | Founder snakes (4) | Our family | $597 |
| Oct 2026 | Promotional stickers: 200 backprint sticker sheets | Our family | $288 |
| Oct 2026 | Rack hardware: screws, clamps, cable management, and ten 10 ft Cat6 cablesOne receipt total | Our family | $115 |
| Oct 2026 | Coco earth, one more block | Our family | $7 |
| Oct 2026 | Rack battery backup, CyberPower SL750U (open-box)Bought open-box instead of new: list $99.99, saved $38.00. $66.33 paid incl. $4.34 tax. Keeps the PoE switch and cameras running through power blinks | Our familyBest Buy | $66.33 |
| Oct 2026 | PoE switch, TP-Link TL-SG1218MPE (Easy Smart managed, 16 PoE+ ports, 250 W)Powers and connects all 10 rack cameras | Our familyAmazon | $160 |
| Oct 2026 | 4 TB recording drive for the local serverHolds the raw camera video before analysis | Our family | $155 |
| Oct 2026 | UPS battery backup for the local serverKeeps recording through short power cuts and shuts the server down cleanly | Our family | $190 |
| Oct 2026 | Live streaming server, VPS M+ (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 120 GB), 1-year term$5/mo for 3 months, then $14/mo, plus tax | Our familyIONOS | $145 |
Money raised is updated from our Stripe account. Card fees run about 3% of each gift. Money past the goal goes to Round 2. We publish what we learn too, including results that do not support our hypothesis.
Round 1, Step by Step.
- Jan 2027Observation lab running: cameras, standardized tubs, animal IDs, database, sensors, and research software working together.
- Mar 2027Camera and movement-recognition testing done: which behaviors the system can reliably see, what gets excluded, and how accurate it is.
- Spring 2027All 20 founders reserved from the 2026 litters, so every founder comes from the same birth season.
- Jul 2027Founder snakes settled in under standardized conditions, with continuous observation and structured care records.
- Sep 2027Measurement protocol finalized and preregistered: valid observation time, behavior definitions, and exclusion rules, written down before any breeding decision.
- Jan 2028First six-month founder dataset complete, and the first look at whether individual snakes are consistently different.
Target dates. The project is designed to run 10 years or longer; if the data support selection, it continues through breeding age and on across generations.
A Father-Daughter Team.
Breathitt, now seven, is a student researcher and aspiring reptile veterinarian who runs the project while she attends a Cambridge International college-prep school. Her sand boa, Tom, inspired the question. Her role grows with her: today it is husbandry, careful observation, weighing, and record keeping; later, genetics, statistics, and experimental design.
Chad, her dad, is the responsible adult project lead and her “faithful lab assistant”: 30+ years in technology and software, a licensed exotic bird breeder from age 16, and about 20 years running a Florida-licensed Class III wildlife breeding facility. He builds the cameras, software, and data systems, and oversees animal welfare.
Latest From the Rack.
Rack 1 Moves Into the Snake Room
Rack 1 moved into its own room on battery backup, with cleaner camera views, and six more founders arrived from Soflo Sand Boas, bringing the study to seventeen.
2026-10-27Seven More Founders and Our Intake System
Seven more founders arrived, so we now have eleven, from three breeders. Our plan grew to 20 unrelated lines plus 3 controls, and our new intake system weighed and photographed each new arrival.
2026-10-26Rack Build Continued
Added 8 of 10 rack camera's
Interested in Supporting the Project?
Would you or your business like to support the Surface Sand Boa Project?
We welcome individuals, businesses, manufacturers, breeders, educators, and organizations interested in supporting the project through products, equipment, services, expertise, educational involvement, or financial sponsorship.
We’re also happy to discuss appropriate recognition for project sponsors and partners. Sponsored products and services will always be clearly identified so visitors understand what was provided and by whom.
Sponsorship recognition is kept separate from research findings. Support for the project is never presented as validation of its methods or results.