Multiple snakes?

[Rawly]

I have a BP that is a little over a year old and I was wondering if u can put other younger snakes in a cage with older ones that are a lot larger. They of course would be the same species, BP. Will the bigger ones get territorial or kill the smaller ones?

[dr del]

Umm,

I would have a look around for some of the older threads on housing more than one snake in an enclosure to see what is likely to happen in this thread.

My personal opinion is that it would be a bad idea.


dr del

[tsdsbd]

yeah noone will advocate it, i mean it can be done, but its unneccisary stress

[seeya205]

The larger would eat the smaller one! Sometimes they do eat each other. You might wake up to one big fat snake!

[cinderbird]

i love this canned reply thing.. best forum idea evar.

To quote another post on the exact same topic (PS: search feature is your friend). Take this post with a grain of salt, but please understand why it is better for your animals to each have a home, than to have to share one. (This post was also made for someone who was already housing animals together).

NO, you should not.

it is NOT good for the animals to be housed together. There are a multitude of reasons for this, including but not limited to the following;

1. You didnt quarantine your new addition and if its carrying something, chances are your older animal has it too anything from parasites, worms, sickness and disease, (even if there arent any symptoms yet)

2. Did you get these animals sexed from a reliable source? Or are you trusting the pet store.. This means you could have two opposite genders and you have the chance that they could now breed early causing the female (if one is a female) problems and possibly killing her

3. Cannibalism is known to occur in a few documented cases involving BPs

4. If one of your animals is sick, you probably wont know which one because you cant tell their feces/urates/regurges apart

5. If one gets sick, they both get sick and now you have to spend 2x the amount of money in vet care.

6. Actions we see as "cuddling" are actually one snake competing with the other. They both may be eating fine now but how long is that going to last? The smaller one is especially at risk for stress which could lower immune levels. They will constantly be competing for the best hide spots and best heating spots, etc.

housing two animals in one enclosure when they arent social isnt something novice keepers should do. Each animal should have their own space to thrive. If cost is the problem then maybe you need to take one back or rehome him until you can provide a sutible environment for any animal that comes into your home.

[waltah!]

I would sat that generally it's convenient for the keeper to keep multiples, but it's not necessarily the best thing for the animals.
I know of some experienced keepers that successfully keep multiple snakes together, but I wouldn't advise it for more inexperienced keepers. Many people keep Carpet Pythons in pairs without issue, and it seems that it's for accepted for those species.
The great thing about tubs is that they're stackable