Two Snakes Interacting Outside Housing

[aseander]

Hi all,

I'm very happy with my male ball and am looking to purchase a second. I will absolutely house them separately, whether the new snake is a male or female. As I will be purchasing the new ball at the same age and relative size, how do I go about introducing them outside of their housing? Ideally, I'd like to be handling both at the same time. Is this okay? Should I chose one sex over the other? Do they need a special introduction?

[Eric Alan]

Most BPs will act indifferently towards each other outside of their normal enclosure. As long as they're both safely within your control, there shouldn't be any issues at all.

[nightrainfalls]

but new snakes should be kept separate from established snakes for 6 months at least to insure that the new snake does not infect the established snake with a disease. I generally only handle one snake at a time and wash carefully before handling another snake.

David

[PitOnTheProwl]

Yes please remember quarantine.
Though I minimize 3 months

[nightrainfalls]

First, unless you are a breeder, it is best to never break quarantine. Of course this is not always practical, especially with a large collection. So how long should quarantine be?

A lot of snake keepers who have been keeping snakes for a long time, use too short a quarantine period. This is due to the poor state of knowledge on the incubation period of many reptile diseases. Reptiles are not economically impactful animals, and so there is comparatively little study done on their diseases. For this reason, most of what we know about the various conditions that affect reptiles come form those of us who love them enough to keep detailed records about thier care and maintenance. Once a keeper notices symptoms in a snake, he or she will usually keep detailed records, see a vet, do all they can to save the animal, and if the animal ultimately dies record the progression of the disease for other keepers to learn from. After the process is completed, the keeper will usually share their observations with the community.

This is extremely valuable but severely underestimates the life history of the infection which eventually kills the reptile. Here are the important points. Reptiles don't complain when they are ill. They may not show outward signs of illness for months. They are usually very far involved in the disease before they display obvious symptoms. If it takes six to eight weeks from the presentation of the illness to death, then it is a good bet the animal has been infected for far longer. Most importantly, the keeper may not know how or when the animal was infected. Additionally, with most diseases, animals can be asymptomatic carriers who randomly shed disease. This leads us to the inevitable conclusion, in most reptile diseases, the incubation period is unknown.

Let me give you one example of how a common disease could evade a 3 month quarantine. Snake mites can live for over forty days. This is five days short of half the three month quarantine period. The larval period is two days, the protonymph may last up to two weeks, and the duetonymph stage takes another day. If one mite capable of reproduction is on the snake when it comes into your house, the snake may have only a mild infestation after the 57 day mark. You may not see any mites on the snake and the snake could still be sub clinical. If the husbandry is not perfect, the snake mites may not reproduce at maximum efficiency. Short of examining the labial pits with magnification, many keepers will have a sub clinical infection over the half way point in the quarantine period. They may not find concrete evidence of the infection until the snake is nearing the end of the quarantine process.

A lot of keeper have found snake mites only after 10 to 15% of there collection is infected. Sometimes the number is far higher. If something as large as a snake mite can get past 90 days, can you imagine how easily a retrovirus could escape notice.

Sometimes a collection collapses after a new snake is brought in and it is assumed the new snake brought in a disease. This is only an assumption however. It is possible, the disease was already present sub clinically in the collection. Cases have been reported where a collection was wiped out after a new snake arrived, but the new snake survived. Was it a carrier, or immune to a long incubating disease that the other snakes already had? I have known experienced keepers with excellent husbandry who have stable collections wiped out by disease, even when no new snakes have been introduced in over a year.

The truth is, unless you are breeding, it is best to keep your snakes separate from one another as much as is practical. Obviously large collections will have some crowding, especially if racks are used, but if you have a small enough collection, keeping snakes in separate rooms, handling them separately, and washing yourself thoroughly between handling will provide the best defense against disease.

David

[dustin860]

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[Albert Clark]

Thank you for that information nightrain! Definitely those are very real considerations.