Question about houseing BPs together

From what I read its not a good thing.

But what if they have always been housed together? Is it good to separate them if they have always been together?

Sure, they'll be fine separated.

Back in the day, I had a male and female housed together. After selling the two separately, I found out the female laid a huge clutch that year :O

Do you think its ok to keep them together or do you think they benefit from being separate?

It's up to you...but I would never house any snake with another one.

Housed together, there are risks for dominating behavior (that isn't cuddling), health issues and shared diseases, and in rare cases cannibalism. Housing one snake per enclosure ensures that you can keep track of that snake's health, wastes, eating routine, etc.

There are some who have sufficient experience with their snakes that they can house them together and not have problems... but I wouldn't want to take the risks.

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Originally Posted by gsx2ts4u

Do you think its ok to keep them together or do you think they benefit from being separate?

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I believe there is no benefit to housing them together. There is a pretty lengthy list on why you should not house them together - and they are good reasons. I'm actually about to pass out right and I'm sure someone will happily post up that list. Good luck to you :)

I ask because someone I know has 3 femals in a HUGE enclosure, they have always lived together, so I was trying to tell her to separate them, but she isn't listening, she thinks they are friends or something.

snakes dont have friends enemys or feel love they eat sleep and poo thats about it until they want to get jiggy with it lolz. In some cases i feel it's ok to house them together if there are enough hides so they dont fight over it and enough room to just get away from the other snakes. There is always the chance of on bp eating or injuring another. How big of an enclosure is it?

When I bought my ball pythons, about 4 months ago, they had been kept together since they were small.
I only separated them a few weeks ago, and they seem to be doing alot better now, they eat more readily, and you don't have to watch to make sure they don'y eat each other at meal times.

she has a 175 gallon tank for them.. very big.. they each have there own hide. they all eat fine. there all 3 years old.

i don't know. she just got mad when i mentioned they shouldn't be in the same space from what I have heard.

The best we can do is offer you the information that is here about why not to keep snakes together. We can't go tell her not to keep her 3 snakes in one tank. The information is all over this site as to why Not to keep snakes together, and you can show it to her, and she can continue keeping them together and risking all those things happening, or she can seperate them, risking that they will "miss each other" even though no one here that I know of has ever had any Bad thing happen from seperating snakes housed together.
It's a question that is asked all the time, so there's TONS of threads, and they all say the same thing.
"Here's 50 reasons you should not keep snakes together"
"Well, I want to keep my snakes together anyway."
Repeat that about 5 million times. On occasion someone does seperate their snakes, and report better feeding, more relaxed animals, etc.
Send your friend to those threads, so she can read them. Be prepared for her to ignore it all, just like tons of others. There's still folks that swear by unregulated heat rocks and pine bedding for snakes too, and they are just as wrong.
Thanks for trying to suggest a better way to keep them to your friend.

:number1: Yeah what she said lol. There's always gonna be people out there that assume that because it "works for them" or their snakes are "sooooooo happy" that they are correct. The problem is and has been for a long time that there is so much mis-information and just plain ignorance out there on the part of "experienced" keepers and especially the people that sell these animals in pet stores etc....

The fact is it is potentially dangerous for your snakes in all the ways mentioned, not the least of which is if you have a female that becomes gravid before she's big enough she can become egg-bound and die!

I'm grateful for the information that I've gotten from the people but there is still a lot of ignorance out there and ultimately the animals suffer because of it:tears:

Ok getting off my soapbox now lol :soapbx:

Well, when I came on this site, following the advice of Petco employees- keeping my two snakes together- these are some of the reasons I was given for NOT housing them together:
-Cannibalism. It can happen.
-If one has runny poo or regurge (or something) how do you know which snake is sick?
-If one gets sick, there's a good chance the other(s) will also get sick. This means multiple vet bills!
-One snake will ALWAYS dominate the other(s). Yes, it looks like cuddling. But in actuality it's REALLY stressing the other snake(s) out.
-Accidental/unwanted clutches. What happens if you look in on your snakes one day and find eggs? Do you (your friend in this case) have a plan? Any clue how to care for the eggs?

After reading all these reasons, I immediately separated them and they both shot up in size, and both seemed happier and healthier.

BTW- Your friend may have hides for each of them but, do they all stay in their own designated hides? I doubt it! Thermoregulation wouldn't allow for it...

Hope this helps!

Hey, that's what I was gonna say! :D Unless she has three hides on each side of the tank, it wouldn't work. And, as was said, the snakes would still probably cram into the one best hide.

But, I would suggest printing out these pages and showing them to your friend. Sometimes showing is much more effective than saying.