Touchy subject that i need some light shined on....

[jere000]

Here is my out look on it i kept 2 ball pythons together for a year and no problems and when breeding season came my ball was all over the other one.Snakes may benefit from seperate enclosures but it isn't as bad as people put it out to be in my opinion it is better for them each to have their own enclosure but it isn't gonna hurt them to be housed together unless it is 2 males.

[OhhWatALoser]

With my collection, I choose to spend the money, provide my snakes with the best possible care, based on years of experience of many ball python experts. I would never "experiment" to save myself money or expand my collection if I did not have the space to do so. My snakes are way too important to me, to sacrifice their possible well being , just to get more.
1 tub, 1 snake.

You can try to justify your shortcuts all day...I'd rather take the popular opinion.

well ill start with im no expert keeper by any means, so most of you will not give a crap what i have to say anyways.

but you will not experiment? what if the first BP's were kept 5 to a burlap sack and no one experimented to find a better way? i mean isn't science and finding out whats best for these animals all about experimenting?

but I do support mike and what hes doing. I mean would you be ok with what hes doing if he had a huge room and had the space but said hey i wanna try something. and if he has negative effects he can report them and add to our knowledge, same if he has positive effects or no effects. Isn't this how we learn?

And just from things i've seen. I don't see how ball pythons try to dominate each other. I've had females together simply because heat went out on a rack. and when i opened the cage, they swapped who was on top and who was on bottom all the time. no one seemed to be domiate. they both ate and no problems until i got the heat taken care of.

also another thing I do that goes against everything on this forum is handle snakes after they eat. you guys say a few days... I'll give em half a day. I've never had a regurge and they don't act different or show any signs of being stressed besides moving slower, im pretty sure thats from the extra load, hell i move slower after i eat to.

but like i said most of you won't care what i have to say, ok experts continue debate

[monk90222]

but you will not experiment? what if the first BP's were kept 5 to a burlap sack and no one experimented to find a better way? i mean isn't science and finding out whats best for these animals all about experimenting?

but I do support mike and what hes doing. I mean would you be ok with what hes doing if he had a huge room and had the space but said hey i wanna try something. and if he has negative effects he can report them and add to our knowledge, same if he has positive effects or no effects. Isn't this how we learn?

And just from things i've seen. I don't see how ball pythons try to dominate each other. I've had females together simply because heat went out on a rack. and when i opened the cage, they swapped who was on top and who was on bottom all the time. no one seemed to be domiate. they both ate and no problems until i got the heat taken care of.

also another thing I do that goes against everything on this forum is handle snakes after they eat. you guys say a few days... I'll give em half a day. I've never had a regurge and they don't act different or show any signs of being stressed besides moving slower, im pretty sure thats from the extra load, hell i move slower after i eat to.

but like i said most of you won't care what i have to say, ok experts continue debate

#1 Mike is not the first person to have BP's in captivity. There is no need for further experiments about multiple housing, it has all been done before.
#2 You have 3 ball pythons (as per your sig) how can you make an assumption that they will OK living together. I do believe that the snake on top was the dominant one. By you stating that "they swapped" tells me that they were in a struggle for domination.
#3 Good luck letting them rest 1/2 a day after eating before handling. I'm sure that's gonna work out great in the long run.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

I know you must have seen pics of one snake eating another, and you are sure it won't happen to you... but.. what if you have the male in with the two females, and one eats the other? Or feels threatened and attacks?

You know this reminds me of another important point. (I should make another post pointing out all of the points I have made in this discussion that nobody has addressed. )

Anyways, so here is the point. If keeping snakes together is so stressful and wrong... Snakes always trying to dominate one another, eat one another, generally unhappy being anywhere near one another... Then why is it that the GREAT majority of breeders keep hatchlings TOGETHER until after the first shed?

I would never "experiment"

LOL, wow, that is a surprise!

#1 Mike is not the first person to have BP's in captivity. There is no need for further experiments about multiple housing, it has all been done before.

Thankfully there are lots of people in this hobby who would and do disagree with you on this. The idea that you or anyone else has something figured out so completely that no further experimentation's or studies are needed appears to be quite ignorant. Especially when we are discussing a natural behavior that does in fact (for one reason or another) happen in the wild.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Field work and first hand accounts like Justins and others that have been to West Africa, captive observations, and experimentation all play a part in how we know.

As tempting as it may be to watch a couple of internet videos and justify keeping two ball pythons in an enclosure together ... that's not science

Yes I did read Justins post and no I am not ignoring it. I was surprised by it though... thought he would have seen some instances where males and females were found together because that is after all how those cute little babies we all love happen.

Mike,

Just an FYI ... breeding is a seasonal thing for ball pythons ... during the breeding season males and females are together for a short period of the year to make all those "cute little babies" and then when breeding season ends they go their separate ways and want nothing to do with each other.
-adam

I was there from November 2000 to Aug 2001. Right through the entirety of the breeding cycle.

No I never saw more than one bp in a hole. That doesn't mean there never is. I wasn't digging for them during laying season either... I was there for other reasons...

Sorry Adam, but for obvious reasons I think the video evidence of this occurring in the wild should not be so easily dismissed.

[Adam_Wysocki]

Then why is it that the GREAT majority of breeders keep hatchlings TOGETHER until after the first shed?

Because that's only a period of 7-10 days and mimics behavior in the wild where hatchlings will remain around the egg mass until they shed and the disperse to live life on their own.

Breeders do it because it works ... and the majority of breeders don't house more than one ball python per cage for the entirety of their life because it doesn't work ... go figure.

Blessings,

-adam

[redpython]

different strokes for different folks. i am pretty sure i did some non text book stuff when i bred my blood pythons, but i had 100 percent success rate.

so if your methods produce results then awesome, if your methods cause all of your snakes to die then fail....and try again.

[cinderbird]

different strokes for different folks. i am pretty sure i did some non text book stuff when i bred my blood pythons, but i had 100 percent success rate.

so if your methods produce results then awesome, if your methods cause all of your snakes to die then fail....and try again.

This has to do with -sample size- though.

You don't state how many times, with how many animals, how many eggs, how many hatchlings, how many this, that and the other thing went on. People have "success" a lot with minuscule sample sizing. This doesn't prove anything scientifically though. There is a METHOD to science (hence the scientific method). The SM isn't the end all be all of science, but it is for things that are testable. Just because what you did worked in the above mentioned instances, dosen't mean it will work all the time for everyone. (that said, i have NO idea about bloods or borneos).

People do have a ton of different husbandry methods for BPs though.. Some people keep them in glass some in plastic, some in acrylic, some offer 5 hides some offer 3 some offer none, some feed F/T some feed live, some people try to feed their snakes snake-sausages..

I think i understand what Adam has been trying to say, i'm not going to go quote 6 pages of replies but one or two, or even 10 videos of BPs being found together in the wild during breeding season (like it was said before, if there are eggs found with the snakes, we can probably assume what time of the year it is). 10 videos don't constitute fact or study. I would believe that logically they would have to spend time together in the wild or else there wouldn't be more babies around. We know other predatory animals are solitary in the wild except for breeding season.

I've talked with people keeping and breeding BPs for a long time (30 years or more in most cases). The methods we have used to keep these animals HAVE changed, thats the thing! The "old school" methods of keeping BPs have changed. People don't keep them in communal groups any longer -for a reason- its because the animals thrive in individual enclosures. They get sick less often, feed more reliably, females lay bigger clutches, etc.

If Mike wants to experiment with his animals, he can. They are his animals. But this still wouldn't constitute scientific study. A real study would take more working together, and pretty rigid constraints and control groups and study groups in numbers large enough to actually give an accurate result.

And there was something a great professor told me when i was in college: NO result or a FAILING result is STILL A RESULT. We don't always get the answers we want in a situation, study or experiment.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Because that's only a period of 7-10 days and mimics behavior in the wild where hatchlings will remain around the egg mass until they shed and the disperse to live life on their own.

Ah, so if you are doing something that "mimics behavior found in the wild" then it is ok....

YouTube - Ball pythons in the wild[/QUOTE]

But this video should not be considered in the discussion for some reason... because it is a Utube video? Or because video of one happening certainly is not proof that it can and does happen?

Breeders do it because it works

Interesting concept isn't it? Keeping grow out females in pairs works for me. It has worked for me for a while now. If I ever observe a substantial reason not to do it in my own collection, I will change. Until then I will just keep doing what works for me.

In this whole big long thread there have only been I believe two or three replies to my original question.... The summary of those answers is that yes you can breed a male to multiple females at once, but generally breeders don't do it because they don't have as much control over the situation. Thanks. That is all the information I was looking for.

Good Day,

[Adam_Wysocki]

Thanks. That is all the information I was looking for.

You're very welcome. I'm happy to help by sharing my experiences whenever I can.

Blessings,

-adam