Multiple burms per enclosure?

Alright I have some young burms, all less than 4 feet, all less than 8 months old. If I wanted to house more than one snake in one enclosure, what minimum size enclosure would you recommend and what else would you recommend? Would age/size differences in the snakes create problems? Should they be the same gender or will that not matter? How many burms would be the max to house together?

Thanks.

Why would you want to house them together?

Many on this site do not recommend housing snakes together as it takes a lot of effort to make sure each snake has its needs met correctly. Housing snakes together causes more problems than it solves and for most people, it just isn't worth it. How will you make sure each snake has proper places to thermoregulate. If there is a favorite spot in the cage, the two snakes will compete for it, often stressing the snakes. Some snakes go off feed if housed together. If one regurgitates, how will you know which one it is? If one gets sick, the other is almost guaranteed to get sick as well. You could have aggression issues. If one of your snakes is not sexed properly and you house a female with a male, the female could begin breeding too early.

So many problems and I just don't see any benefit to the snakes being together. My advice is to house them separately.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

Why would you want to house them together?

Many on this site do not recommend housing snakes together as it takes a lot of effort to make sure each snake has its needs met correctly. Housing snakes together causes more problems than it solves and for most people, it just isn't worth it. How will you make sure each snake has proper places to thermoregulate. If there is a favorite spot in the cage, the two snakes will compete for it, often stressing the snakes. Some snakes go off feed if housed together. If one regurgitates, how will you know which one it is? If one gets sick, the other is almost guaranteed to get sick as well. You could have aggression issues. If one of your snakes is not sexed properly and you house a female with a male, the female could begin breeding too early.

So many problems and I just don't see any benefit to the snakes being together. My advice is to house them separately.

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To be honest I want to house them together because its easier to deal with (physically and financially) one big enclosure as oppose to two slightly smaller enclosures. If I wanted to house two female burms in one 8'x3'x24'' cage it would be easier than one burm per 6'x3'x24'' cage.

As for thermoregulating, if there's a big enough temperature gradient in the cage, how would it be a problem for the snakes to accomplish this? Sexing wouldnt be an issue either because I get my burms screened and sexed by a local vet along with me popping their vent for gender.

It seems like proper husbandry of the snakes would keep a lot of these problems from arising. Please dont take this as me dismissing your post, but maybe it wouldnt be as bad as you think it would be as long as proper husbandry is practiced.

Thanks.

If you put two in the same enclosure you are going to have a big issue come feeding time. Really big issues once they get big. Also, what if one happens to bite and latch onto you? You would not only have to worry about that one but the other one in the cage also with all the action going on at that time. Seems better to me make two 8 foot long enclosure's, put one in each and stack them if your looking to save space?

Proper husbandry won't fix all of the problems. There will still be the issue of the snakes stressing each other out. In the wild, these snakes would not come in such close contact with each other (unless it was breeding season). And feeding time will also be a lot harder. You will have to feed each snake separately. This can become difficult with larger snakes and when you open that cage, its bad enough to have one large, hungry snake ready to eat, imagine two!

In the end, you are going to do what you want to do, but I'm just giving you my opinion.

I appreciate everyone's input, I really do. I will probably just end up getting separate enclosures for each burm. I didnt think it would have been that big of a deal especially when I see a lot of breeders housing multiple burms together with seemingly no problems.

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Originally Posted by Sanchez

I appreciate everyone's input, I really do. I will probably just end up getting separate enclosures for each burm. I didnt think it would have been that big of a deal especially when I see a lot of breeders housing multiple burms together with seemingly no problems.

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I think you made the right choice to house them seperately except while breeding :gj: Just curious as to what breeders you have seen house their burms together all the time? I could be wrong in my assumptions and I am willing to be proven wrong.

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Originally Posted by Boanerges

I think you made the right choice to house them seperately except while breeding :gj: Just curious as to what breeders you have seen house their burms together all the time? I could be wrong in my assumptions and I am willing to be proven wrong.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_BjNHOjU3c

Here is one breeder I found on youtube. He houses both of those burms together and eventually bred them to a decent sized healthy clutch. He also has close to 70 different snakes in his collection of varying species so I feel like he knows his stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZNswPChp44

Here is another breeder housing multiple snakes (not burms however) in single enclosures.


These are just two off the top of my head where multiple snakes are housed together by successful breeders. I felt like if they could do it why not me?

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Originally Posted by Sanchez

If I wanted to house two female burms in one 8'x3'x24'' cage it would be easier than one burm per 6'x3'x24'' cage.

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When I house multiple animals together, I follow this rule:

If a lone animal needs X amount of space, I need a cage that is BIGGER than 2X total space to house 2 animals.

If you could house a female burm in a 6x3x2, by my personal preferences, I'd want at least a 12x3x2 to house two, and preferably bigger.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sanchez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_BjNHOjU3c

Here is one breeder I found on youtube. He houses both of those burms together and eventually bred them to a decent sized healthy clutch. He also has close to 70 different snakes in his collection of varying species so I feel like he knows his stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZNswPChp44

Here is another breeder housing multiple snakes (not burms however) in single enclosures.


These are just two off the top of my head where multiple snakes are housed together by successful breeders. I felt like if they could do it why not me?

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First video you posted he says at 39 - 40 secs into the video each snake will have its own big enclousure in a month or something like that. Didn't watch the second one yet. But if you really wanted to do it you could always email the people who are doing it with success asking them what their opinions are on doing it since they will have first hand experience on the pro's and con's of doing it.


Watched the second video and in that video by the way he is talking those boa's are breeding.