My ball python senses my new baby boa

Hi everyone,

I am curious to learn more about this. Basically, I have a baby boa, which I have just moved into the same room as my ball python, a few days ago.
The boas tub is not in sight of the ball python, as it is at a lower level, and to the side.

I can see the change in my ball python. He seems to sense the baby boa. I was just holding him (the ball python) and he was tasting the air, slightly nervous and curious.
I am amazed at their sense of smell. Frozen rats, I can smell. Snakes, I cannot smell. It just goes to show.
So I was wondering, what were your experiences of this?
Also, I have seen plenty of videos of snakes being amongst eachother (not cohabiting, of course, but supervised friendship sessions!).

Is it possible that my ball will feel at ease soon, and is there any hope of them 'meeting peacefully' in the future?
How do you go about getting snakes to 'meet'? Did you start while they were both young?
I'm really curious about this! :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FractalVision

Hi everyone,

I am curious to learn more about this. Basically, I have a baby boa, which I have just moved into the same room as my ball python, a few days ago.
The boas tub is not in sight of the ball python, as it is at a lower level, and to the side.

I can see the change in my ball python. He seems to sense the baby boa. I was just holding him (the ball python) and he was tasting the air, slightly nervous and curious.
I am amazed at their sense of smell. Frozen rats, I can smell. Snakes, I cannot smell. It just goes to show.
So I was wondering, what were your experiences of this?
Also, I have seen plenty of videos of snakes being amongst eachother (not cohabiting, of course, but supervised friendship sessions!).

Is it possible that my ball will feel at ease soon, and is there any hope of them 'meeting peacefully' in the future?
How do you go about getting snakes to 'meet'? Did you start while they were both young?
I'm really curious about this! :P

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Hmm, I think he will settle down eventually. I have all my snakes on a shelf (not like a snake rack, its a big shelf I got from Home Depot that their tanks are on.) and have never had any issues. I have two balls and one boa [emoji14].
As for them ´meeting', I think that can happen. Very supervised, for breif sessions. Probably while they're small. And dont do it too often or they would probably get pretty stressed. Just long enough for a quick photo [emoji3]

Sent from my LG-TP260 using Tapatalk

I have 8 snakes in one room and one in quarantine. As soon as they all stick their heads out from the cage their tongues go to work until they get more comfortable so to speak.

Same goes while I hold them. So I can’t say that I noticed any change in behavior with new additions.

As as far as introductions go, I have no intention of doing so. I’m not saying that it is bad or anything, I just have no reason to do so. Handling one 8 foot Carpet or 7 foot + Boa is enough work by itself. [emoji4] No reason for ME to get stressed. :rolleye2:

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e7a594f6a6.jpg

My snakes pay no attention to each other and they are all within eye shot of each other, only a few inches.

I'm not sure why people continually think of putting animals together that as if they will be friends or something, it's not like they are cats or dog.

Not to mention these two animals would never meet in the wild. How do you know there isn't some sort of "bug" that is normal for your ball, but is pathogenic for your boa, or vice versa.

Unintended consequences are something not planned for.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by viper69

My snakes pay no attention to each other and they are all within eye shot of each other, only a few inches.

I'm not sure why people continually think of putting animals together that as if they will be friends or something, it's not like they are cats or dog.

Not to mention these two animals would never meet in the wild. How do you know there isn't some sort of "bug" that is normal for your ball, but is pathogenic for your boa, or vice versa.

Unintended consequences are something not planned for.

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I remember reading something about some type of illness that could occur from putting a python with a boa. I don't know if it's true or not though. I wouldn't try to introduce my snakes to each other mostly because of size differences and I would think that the larger snake would try to kill or eat the smaller one(s)

Considering that I also have a sunbeam snake, a water python, three cali kings, and a Thayer king, I tend not to let my snakes mingle too much. Lol

Ah, yeah. Good point! Love that pic of your bedroom. The design of your bed is perfect for him/her :P

Yes, I do agree with the point made that they are not cats or dogs. I have thought about it and decided not to bother letting them 'meet'.
The ball python is not crazy anxious or anything, just slightly on edge and curious, so I just hope that he will return to his usual level of comfort at some point.

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

I have 9 snakes and a bearded dragon all in the same room and the only one who actually showed any signs of noticing one another is my beardie who was terrified of my snakes at first but now she doesnt care. My snakes all try to go into each others cages all the time. i caught Vicky climbing into Rosey's cage and also climbing into Caesar's cage. But i also leave a door open in all the cage stacks when I'm down there as most of the snakes seem to enjoy sitting on the litter damn except the pythons who are troublemakers. The 'trouble trio' is Caesar, Dottie and Pat. Those 3 especially Dottie LOVE to climb out of their cages and explore. Caesar is hit or miss. Some days he is uncontrollable and other days, he is happy to just get petted on the litter damn and sit there.
https://ball-pythons.net/forums/cach...08b73b8d_o.jpg

All of mine like to crawl out of their cages most of the time. But only the Carpets are interested in what/who are in the other cages.

The others would rather spend their time destroying the room if I let them. They just want to knock everything off the tops of cages and rip pictures off of the wall and as well as the ceiling fan. And of course the Carpets would get around to that as well.

It's funny you posted this as I was thinking about this recently as I bought my second BP recently. My first girl has always been really curious and unafraid of everything. But as soon as I got my second BP and put him in the rack below hers she immediately changed. Didn't really want me bothering her anymore and being really tense when I did get her out. It seems to have gone away as of last night though. I also wondered if weather could affect their behaviors though. She still eats everything I put in front of her, but I live in Indiana and our weather has been going crazy recently so I wondered if pressure changes or the sharp change from sunny and hot to snowing the next day could have been affecting her behavior too.