2 snakes in 1 tank

is it ok to have 2 bp's in the same tank?

i go to a pet store to buy my mice and everytime i look in the snake tanks i always see 2 snakes per tank but then some say not to

For the health and safety for your animal, it's not recommended to house ball pythons together unless its for breeding.

There are a number of reasons, but long story short, it minimizes the risk of illness and mite transfer.

Petstores will house snakes together to save space. Their overall husbandry usually isn't up to par anyway.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

For the health and safety for your animal, it's not recommended to house ball pythons together unless its for breeding.

There are a number of reasons, but long story short, it minimizes the risk of illness and mite transfer.

Petstores will house snakes together to save space. Their overall husbandry usually isn't up to par anyway.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

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X2!! Do not keep more than one snake in the same tank/tub unless you are breeding, they are solitary animals.

you CAN. But you SHOULD NOT..

You've opened up a can of worms that could easily snowball off into yet another thread of argument.

Needless to say, it's a bad idea. Keeping them together results in advanced husbandry that honestly isn't worth the time unless it's a emergency.

i dont keep my bps in the same tank.. but the pet store i go to has 2 snakes in the same tank and they say its ok and some of you guys here say its bad

I think everyone here would say bad idea.

Pet stores are known to keep their reptiles in incorrect conditions. this ranges from wrong temperatures/humidity to multiple snakes in 1 cage that is too small to begin with. Pet store employees generally know nothing about the care of reptiles and give out terrible information that can have devastating effects if carried out. Never ask them about reptiles. online communities like BP.net are full of people who have first hand experience and many have been in the industry for years.

My local PetSmart thinks it's okay to keep BPs with a hot spot of 80ºF and 100% humidity, two snakes to a 5gal, on sand, and no hides. They tell people to buy the biggest tank they sell when you purchase a snake and recommend hot rocks and UVB lights while saying that a UTH is useless. If that doesn't send up warning flags with everyone here on basing your judgement on just what a pet store says, I don't know what would.

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Originally Posted by JaGv

i dont keep my bps in the same tank.. but the pet store i go to has 2 snakes in the same tank and they say its ok and some of you guys here say its bad

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Chances are the pet store is either trying to sell another or that the employees don't know as much as they should.

There are so many reasons why not to, and few if any reasons to cohabitate 2 snakes together.

- have to be fed in separate containers
- compete for space and hides
- possibility of breeding
- 1 gets sick, both will, 2x vet bills and medications
- inability to properly track waste (who dropped the bloody urates?)

-They are NOT social animals and cohabitating can put unnecessary stress on one if not both.

a guy at petco once told me to clean everything in my tank if i wanted to put 2 snakes to one tank so i would eliminate the other snakes smell and that they would be ok.. at petsmart i was told only when they were babies you can put 2 snakes in the same tank..

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Originally Posted by JaGv

a guy at petco once told me to clean everything in my tank if i wanted to put 2 snakes to one tank so i would eliminate the other snakes smell and that they would be ok.. at petsmart i was told only when they were babies you can put 2 snakes in the same tank..

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Wrong on both counts...

there are literally dozens of threads on this site that were caused by misinformation from pet stores

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Originally Posted by JaGv

a guy at petco once told me to clean everything in my tank if i wanted to put 2 snakes to one tank so i would eliminate the other snakes smell and that they would be ok.. at petsmart i was told only when they were babies you can put 2 snakes in the same tank..

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JaGv, I need you to repeat after me:

"The PetSmart guy is a window licker :lick:"
"The PetSmart guy is a window licker :lick:"
"The PetSmart guy is a window licker :lick:"
"The PetSmart guy is a window licker :lick:"
"The PetSmart guy is a window licker :lick:"

Now, please don't go to the PetSmart guy for husbandry advise. Though it has yet to be proven as a fact, it it very likely that the Zombie Apocalypse will be triggered by two ball pythons living in the same tank.

Keep in mind most people who work at bix box pet stores where reptiles are just a trinket pet they do not have alot of experience in reptiles other then the misguided info theybare told by whoever hired them. Next time you go in there ask them what those lil black bugs crawling on them are.

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Originally Posted by JaGv

is it ok to have 2 bp's in the same tank?

i go to a pet store to buy my mice and everytime i look in the snake tanks i always see 2 snakes per tank but then some say not to

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Short a answer.......do not do it.
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http://img.tapatalk.com/48dd5fc8-976d-c524.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/48dd5fc8-9775-af64.jpg

To make it simple and short. No i would never reccommend it to someone. Id even be skeptical of someone with years and years of experience doing it.

You really can't fault people who work at Petco or PetSmart personally for giving misinformation. They work a retail job. They're not vets and they're not animal specialists. Anyone who had a full range of husbandry knowledge for all animals would have gone to college for Zoology or some similar and would not be slinging crickets down by the fish tanks.

It's our responsibility as intelligent people and caring pet owners to seek our info from appropriate sources, like forums of people who dedicate their heart and soul to a specific type of keeping.

Read the no responses here, realize you made a responsible and intelligent decision asking that question on these forums, and follow the advice.


Also... because those pictures are intense.

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Originally Posted by MrLang

You really can't fault people who work at Petco or PetSmart personally for giving misinformation. They work a retail job. They're not vets and they're not animal specialists.

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Ahhhh, yes I can! They work in a petstore...it's their job...it's what they get paid good Yankee Dollars to do...

And it's not that hard to learn the basic husbandry for the 22 different animals that the average PETCO/PetSmart sells.

I don't expect them to know as much as the keepers on this Forum, but I would expect them to know some basic husbandry. When someone buys an animal from them, they are the authority, or at least they act like it. It shouldn't be too much to ask for them to know something.

I directlly expect anyone who works at any retail store to know what they are selling. They dont need to be vets to answer 99% of the questions that would come their way.

I expect a retail employee to know what their job trained them to know. It's always nice when the employee goes above and beyond that and does some actual research on their products, but in today's workforce it's not expected. I can't really fault an employee for repeating what they've been told to say... I can find fault in a corporation that trains people to say things that could end in disaster for the animals they're selling.

I have a buddy that works in a PetSmart down in Texas and she knows more than half the procedures with the reptiles are wrong. She also knows that if she does something outside of company policy and the pet care manager catches wind, she'll very likely be out of a job. So instead she forcefeeds the snakes that are too stressed to eat on their own, can't quarantine, etc. She hates it, but she's bound by company policy. She is at least allowed refuse to sell to customers that are planning to refuse their pet something necessary ("yea man, I heard on the internet that corn snakes can eat crickets so I'm not buying any mice"), and she tells me about them quite often :\

Here is the bottom line. It isn't the employees that are truly at fault. It is the company itself. If the company would just post a decent care sheet next to the animals cage all of this would be solved. Either the employees read it and then spit the info back out or have the customers read it directly.

I don't expect the employees to go out and research all of this stuff for themselves. They aren't getting paid enough for that. The company they work for should provide the info to them and have them read it. (as a high school age intern at an engineering company I was expected to know the entire ethical code (about 50 pages) by the end of my first week. I didn't even get paid there yet) reading something and having the correct information available to reference isn't too big a deal even at minimum wage.

Yeah, I was more faulting the training/lack thereof due to the corporation. I could have made that more clear.

I just meant you shouldn't say "that jackass at petco" as an individual fault when really it's a bigger issue than the store having an under-trained or un-trained employee on the floor... or one who chooses to ignore training.

Slim- I agree people should take pride in their job. If that were true a higher % of the time I'd be more likely to hold people accountable for it. As it stands, I think it's on the information seeker to ensure that their sources are solid. Call me cynical; I would.

A petstore employee SHOULD be a solid source. I wouldn't hold a minimum wage employee personally responsible for making sure that they're a solid source, is all I'm saying. It's a lack of faith, not that I don't think they SHOULD be responsible. I doubt most plan to make a career out of the job. It's only a bit hairy in this circumstance because we're dealing with the well-being of living animals.