multiple snakes

[Skittles1101]

Ah, I think the misunderstanding lies in the fact that while I quoted your post, I was addressing other people who posted in this thread. You are correct, you did not say you CANNOT house them together - you strongly advised against it, but for completely different reasons than I do.

When it comes to sick snakes, I still take exception to your post. I have been keeping snakes for over three decades, and while my knowledge of snakes is far from all encompassing, I can tell you the number of outbreaks of disease I have had in that time:

1 - and it was due to a disease than cannot be quarantined away or 100% found by even multiple tests.

I currently have less than 25 animals, but that's the lowest I've had in a long, long time. For a period of time, I was importing quite a few WC snakes from Africa and elsewhere and never had an outbreak of anything.

I also keep rhamps, thrasops, and pseustes in breeding pairs. In the past I have kept spilotes and various antaresia in continual pairings and have never had an issue. I have even had cribos that would not breed unless kept year round - all without issue - be it cannibalism or disease.

Therefore when it comes to this notion that properly quarantined and treated snakes get sick out of the blue and infect their room/tank mates, I feel fairly qualified to speak out of experience.

I also personally know quite a few big name breeders who wouldn't know proper quarantine if it bit them in the ass. How do I know? I've sold to a few over the years. Yep, they receive a box of baby cribos on Friday and on Monday they are posting them for sale. There are many members of that group that are rightfully wary of snake diseases - mainly because they have collections that are constantly exposed to new, unquarantined arrivals.

The issue I had with your original post is that it implies that cohabitating properly quarantined animals together will result (so say the big box breeders) in an a bunch of dead animals. Nothing could be further than the truth.

The biggest problem in cohabitating ball pythons is that they are easily stressed. But many people remove them and feed them in separate containers which is also stressful so go figure................

And while I agree that that ball pythons stress easily, I'm not sure anyone can say 100% that it's the biggest problem. I was just saying that in my experience, in horror stories I've heard, in people I've talked to, in the countless hours I've spent researching between books-internet-asking direct questions to big breeders, that if snakes can get killed off by the dozen in racks, what do you think will happen if they are kept together? That was my only comment, and you distorted it or misinterpreted it to say that "it is NEVER a good idea to house together." Which is not what I meant. Also IMO you are very quick to shoot people down who are trying to help, over little details that you misinterpreted.