A Kenyan sand boa spends most of its life hidden under substrate, which makes its paperwork unusually important: for weeks at a time, the written record is almost all you see of how the snake is doing. A boa that is feeding well underground and one that has quietly stopped can look identical from above the substrate. Buy the history as carefully as the snake, and collect it at handover.
Sale, origin, and identification papers
Ask for a receipt or transfer note giving the seller's name and contact details, the date, and the snake identified by species, sex, and age or hatch details as supplied. Get captive-bred origin confirmed in writing. If any licence or permit applies to keeping or selling this species where you live, keep the relevant forms with the receipt and check your own obligations with local rules.
Sex deserves its own line and its own confirmation, because female Kenyan sand boas grow notably larger and heavier-bodied than males. A mis-sexed snake is not a disaster, but it changes the adult enclosure and feeding expectations you plan for, and correcting the record later usually means paying for a vet to check what the seller could have stated at sale.
Take clear photographs at handover, including the pattern along the back and any unusual markings. Sand boa patterns vary enough that good photos, filed with the receipt, identify your individual snake reliably.
Feeding records: method first, then dates
Ask exactly how the boa has been fed: frozen-thawed or live, prey size, how the prey was presented — left at the substrate surface, offered with tongs at dusk, or placed near where the boa lies buried — and the usual interval between feeds. Sand boas are ambush feeders that strike upward from cover, and the presentation ritual is often the trigger a particular snake has learned.
Then get dates: recent successful feeds, any refusals, and the longest gap the seller considers normal for this individual. Males in particular can skip meals seasonally. A written feeding history lets you recreate the working routine in the new enclosure instead of experimenting on a snake you can rarely watch eat.
Shed, health, and keeping notes
Request recent shed dates and whether sheds were complete, plus the warm-side temperature and substrate type and depth the boa was kept on. A snake settled in deep, dry substrate with a warmer burrowing spot may refuse food simply because the new setup feels different under its body.
Ask about vet checks, any treatment for mites or respiratory signs, and any live-feeding injuries in its history, taking copies of vet records where they exist. If the seller reports no issues and holds no vet paperwork, note that statement and its date in the file.
For the first month at home, add one observation line each evening: substrate disturbed or undisturbed, prey taken or left, and any nose or tail tip visible at the surface. Because this species is so secretive, those tiny surface clues are your equivalent of watching another snake move around its enclosure, and they build the baseline that later changes are judged against. If prey is left uneaten overnight, note that too and remove it in the morning, so the log distinguishes a refused meal from one you simply forgot to check on.
From your first feed onward, log dates and outcomes yourself and keep the seller's pages with them, using KinsLe and its Pet Passport to keep your Kenyan sand boa's origin, sex, and feeding method together as one lasting record.