Male trying to breed Male BP?

[loonunit]

If you are housing them together, I assume you are feeding them separately? Because that seems to be where the real danger is. And never mind males together: I once offered two rats to a locked male/female pair, and they both went for the same rat. And then neither would let go. Scared the heck out of me, I can't even describe it. People on this forum will show you graphic pictures of a ball python who was necropsied and found to have swallowed his/her tank mate. I would put down good money that that happened because of a feeding incident, probably very similar to what I saw with my mating pair. After that incident with my mated pair, I now completely skip offering food to locked pairs: If I can't separate them, they both get to wait a week.

But even with separate feedings, breeding-size males are actually difficult to house together year-round. They will do just fine for 8 or 9 or even 10 months.... but once breeding season starts, you will see them lock together. That's not really a big deal. Okay, some of males will lock until they are bloody, and I don't like to see a lot of blood in any of my pairings, intentional or not.

BUT THEN, sometime in mid-winter, they will start to wrestle.

The wrestling behavior is great if you want to stimulate a particular male to breed with a particular female. But it's terrible if they are roommates, and they are doing it constantly. I've seen them really go at it in a 50-gallon tank, and again, it scared me: they thrashed, they slammed into the glass, they kicked their hides around like soccer balls. They're STRONG. I'm pretty sure there is some chance they could hurt themselves, even in a tub, if they kept that up all winter.

So yeah: males lock together when they don't have a female available. It's super common, it doesn't seem to be dangerous or traumatizing to them. But you probably do want to look into separate housing for them, because they probably will go WWF on you in a month or two. And that's not actually any fun.