My recent acquisition of a Chinese Water Dragon has brought back memories of my Iguanas I had more that a decade ago now. And when I read about how to house multiple dragons together I began to think about why snakes aren't housed together. And what the real reason is.
Most of the time the following reasons are generally cited:
- Possible aggression for resources
- If one gets sick both might or it might be hard to tell who is really sick
- One might eat/kill the other
- Snake aren't social animals
Now that I really think about it, it seems the only true valid is the last one.
The other reasons are all risks of housing any 2 or more animals together. It is common practice in the lizard world to house multiple together. Iguanas for example have a strong social structure. The dominate male hangs out at the highest spot. Another male that intrudes will be met with confrontation. Adults also typically hang out higher that babies and juveniles. The rule of thumb was always that you could house a male with up to 4 females together in an appropriately sized enclosure and not have much risk of territorial aggression. Even so, you had to monitor them especially in breeding season.
That said, all those risks are there. They could fight. They could hog food. One could get sick and pass it around. All that risk is there. But because they are social in nature, most can accept those risks.
Snakes on the other hand, with rare exception, are not social at all outside of breeding. And that is the real underlying reason to most don't house them together.
And even with that, there are plenty of zoo's and pro herps like ViperKeeper that really know what they are doing and do house multiple snakes together. So it seems that if you are really pro you can accept more risk and do things that would normally not be acceptable.
In summary, I really think that housing rules (and most rules in general) should really be looked as guidelines and not as hard as fast absolutes that can never be broken. Meaning that if you are new and want the best for your animals then here's how to do it at you're level of experience. As you become more experienced you can start to fudge those lines a little to get what you want out of what you enjoy.
I personally don't plan of housing my snakes together outside of breeding because I am not willing to accept the risks as previously mentioned. But if someone else with great experience wanted to do that, I don't think I have the right to tell them they shouldn't.
Just my 2 cents.
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