changing behaviors

[dr del]

Hi,

Thanks for the novel, it's the kinda response I was looking for. I currently feed them outside their tank, Kenny sometimes in the tank while the others are out eating, depending on his mood. They eat live, I try to imitate nature as much as possible, I would feed african soft furs or gerbils, but their super illegal here in CA and with my dad being an ag inspector he would chew my head off... I avoid the hands smelling like food issue by having my bf handle the snakes while I handle the rats. And I have no issue with the time it takes to feed them, it's an event we look forward to every week...

Ok - sounds like you have considered the possible problems and tried to minimise them. Do all the snakes eat relatively consistently though? One of the things you will also notice we tend to recommend is in tank feeding to reduce stress for the nervous snakes out there. The reasoning for this is fairly basic in that in the wild they seem to operate mostly as ambush predators and you tend to get the best feeding response from a snake hiding inside his hide with his head sticking out in ambush mode.

But, as you have found, routine can be a big factor in feedings too and as long as the snake eats consistently I'm all for continuing the same routine until you find a reason not to.

Altho I have a lot of pets, I also have a lot of time and pay close attention to them. So far I haven't had any issues with knowing whose poop is whose and who shed what... And I just reach in and take the poop out, no need to move all the snakes to clean.... Same goes with sheds.

Do I have a humidity issue if they are all shedding normal?

No probably not - that's the main test I use.

I still check the numbers but I let the snakes tell me if they need it more humid or not. Do you check each shed for the eyecaps? I find this saves me so much hastle - no more squinting deep into my snakes eyes while it tries to stick its tongue up my nose.

I'm guessing from the "reach in and take the poop out" bit that you are using a substrate such as aspen or coconut fibre?

I was using newspaper - and once you can see how much pee they actually produce spot cleaning just never seems to be enough.

As far as the health issue, I understand and agree completely that one sick snake means 3 sick snakes. This is the only reason that has ever had me considering separating them. The people who are pro co-housing say if your snakes have all they need and are happy and healthy, why would they get sick?

Same reason as any other animal on earth gets sick? It's not a concious choice by the sickee.

Seriously if someone said something like that to me I wouldn't listen to anything else they ever said. I can see the argument that stress can weaken the immune system as can low temps or lowered or too high humidity but saying that can make them more likely doesn't mean that not having those problems means no animal will ever get sick.

There is an argument that communal housing can cause stress through dominance and competition in fact.

It's just not a cut and dried situation really - almost nothing about keeping animals is. (see below )

Please don't take this as me shootinging back at you that all your reason are wrong and this is why (even if it sounds like it, sorry). Just trying to put as much info out there as possible, so people can form as accurate as possible responses.

No problems with it at all.

I changed the wording as it was inside the 9 minute edit window but wouldn't have been by the time I PM'd or posted for you to read - hope you don't mind.

What I'd really like to hear is reasons why I can't just leave them all in there and let them mate, have and "raise" their young? (I know snakes don't raise their young and I'm guessing the babies would get eaten if left with the big adults) Has anyone had this happen as well? I'm just a pet owner, not trying to make any money or anything. But I have had many species breed in my care, just not snakes.

This one is a bit more cut and dried.

Multiple males will combat during breeding season as you discovered causing definate stress to the loser if he cannot get away - since one of the things you are certain of is that you have more than one male that pretty much rules out keeping all three in one tank.

Maternal incubation can certainly happen - but you need to be very specific in the conditions you provide to enable the female to be able to do it successfully. She won't eat at this time and will be skinny as all get go. So by the time she hatches the eggs she probably won't have eaten anything for 90 days or so.

During all this time I suspect the males would be nothing but a royal pain in the butt from the perspective of her and the eggs.

Canibalism has certainly been known in ball pythons. I have a pic but you really don't want to see it - suffice to say both snakes were the same size and both died.

I don't know if they would try and eat the babies - but they would certainly cruise right over the top of them without noticing which doesn't sound too healthy to me.

My big female is 2600g and the new baby is 61g - the phrase "splat" comes to mind.

Gorgeous snake btw

Why thank you.

Two of the nine are out of the egg already but the rest are being sluggabeds.


dr del