I'm a Newbie BP owner, and I got a few questions

[The Serpent Merchant]

I am glad you are pleased with your new snakes. I have to tell you though, housing them together is not a very good idea. It can be done, but it really takes a lot of experience to do it correctly. You run a lot of real risks housing two snakes together, and the benefits are really negligible.

Among other things, illness is a real risk. If one gets sick, then both will be. This means double the vet bills, double the medication, and double the headache. And another consideration is cannibalism. There have been a number of documented cases of one ball python eating it's cage mate, which usually results in both dying. There is also a great risk involved in feeding two snakes housed together. Not only is it a lot more difficult to get them both eating, if one has an aggressive feeding response, there is a real chance the other might get bitten or even constricted by mistake.

Yes, there are people who house ball pythons and other snakes together successfully, but for most of us, it's simply not something we attempt. Too many risks involved with no real payoff for doing it.

I wish you all the best, but I really hope you will reconsider how you house your snakes.

Gale

This.

Here are some reasons why cohabitation snakes is a bad idea. This was originally written by another forum member so the credit goes to LGray23:


Here is my generic answer to questions like these:

Cohabitating reptiles even as the same species is not recommended. Insead of just telling you "no" I'll list the common reasons why.
1) Cannibalism, not common, but there are DOCUMENTED cases. This alone isn't worth the risk.
2) Stress. Even the most friendly snakes get stressed out, so why cause the stress? Snakes have no want or need to be with another snake unless it's for breeding purposes. Other than that, it's just an unwanted roommate that they can't get away from.
3) Space. They will constantly try to dominate eachother for the best spots in the enclosure, even if you have multiple hides, you'll mainly see them together in one spot. People usually see this as "cuddling". It's not cuddling, they are fighting over the best spot.
4) You wake up in the morning after feeding and there's a regurgitated mouse. Which one did it?
5) One gets sick, now both are sick. That's 2X the vet bills, 2X the medications, and 2X the stress.
6) You are told the new snake you bought is the same sex as the one you already have. a year later, you find eggs in the enclosure. You have not prepared, no incubator, no space for babies, and no one to sell them to. What do you do now? The pet store/vet/person sexed them wrong.
7) Quarantine. How are you going to quarantine the new snake away from your original one? As you gain more experience, you'll find that quarantine is a NECESSITY. You could get a perfectly healthy snake, or one covered in mite eggs that hatch 3 days after you bring it home. Now both snakes have mites. Snakes also can take a long time to start showing symptoms of illness, now you got your original snake sick because you didn't quarantine.

Those are just the more known and common issues with housing multiple reptiles. The list goes on. The only pro to housing them together is to save space in your house by only having one enclosure, but is it worth it? That is up to you. People that say "I house two together and they are fine", they are fine now but with them being housed together there is NO guarantee it will stay that way forever. The only way to avoid future issues is to house them separately.