Keeping BPs Together???

[nimblykimbly]

A rehash of a rehash that has been rehashed countless times. While counseling inexperienced keepers on the risks of co-habitating certain species is fine, doling out husbandry recommendations for "reptiles even of the same species" is not. Especially when you have no experience with those species. At least Gale did the correct thing and limited her advice to ball pythons and beginning keepers. She's was right to express caution.

To anyone else who would try to counsel husbandry advice with a blanket brush to cover all snakes: Ever tried to breed thrasops, pseustes, philodryas spp. or spilotes without cohabitating them? These species are well nigh impossible to breed unless cohabitated together year round. Given the proper space and in the care of experienced keepers, many species do wonderfully cohabitated together. They feed fine, crap fine and breed fine. In decades of cohabitating species not prone to ophiophagy, I have never had a case of spontaneous illness break out, nor have I had one mate decide to lunch on the other, nor have I ever had two snakes fight over the same spot.

OP:

Having said that, keep your ball pythons in separate tupperware bins. It's actually more expensive and more work to cohabitate two snakes in a way that provides for all their needs.

Please also remember:

1. Feed your snakes on a silk doily so that they don't ingest substrate when eating. Although no one can really cite a necropsy backed reason to do this, 8 out of 10 people who have owned a snake for less than a year seem worried about substrate ingestion, so you should be too.

2. Keep the hot spot at exactly 90-92 degrees and the cool end at 77 to 80. Ball pythons in the wild are not exposed to temperature variations outside of this range.

3. Provide realistic belly heat like they would get in a termite mound. All termite mounds in Africa are made by termites sponsored by Calorique.

4. Feed them a domestic rat or mouse diet like they would get in the wild. Ignore that studies have shown that the majority of their diet is avian and that they have to climb to get it.

5. Pine substrate has not been proven to be harmful to snakes, but a bunch of people who have never used it claim it is even though they cannot point out one health related instance to one snake. Go with the rest of the sheep and claim an issue with something you've never had an issue with based on the word of someone else who has never had an issue with it.

6. Mercilessly mist and moisten your tupperware tub so that the humidity stays at 70% and mold and bacteria become an issue. Forget that it is much healthier and beneficial to construct humid hides.

7. Make sure that two male ball pythons never make eye contact or a battle for the dominant alpha ball position in the pack may break out.

8. Keep in mind that many of the food related morphs are tastier to non-food related morphs. If you try to breed a chocolate to a fire, expect one of those oh-so-often incidents of ball python cannibalism that we ALWAYS never hear about.

Most importantly, gain experience by reading, not by actually experiencing any of the techniques or advice you are giving out. Rehash and regurge all of the crap you read on forums like this so that a new generation of herpers cannot learn from your lack of experience. Understand that there is only one way to do things and that is the way the herd tells you to do things. Anything outside of that is taboo and you will get negative rep points for applying logic and actual experience to these discussions.

Hope that helps!

I'm sorry, but this ^^^ made me laugh! But it's right!


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[barbie.dragon]

If you use the search function there are NUMEROUS threads concerning this issue. I'm sure we encourage questions but try using the American search function first. There's a lot of rich information to be found

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[Trackstrong83]

Simply, to anyone who doesn't have extensive experience, keep ball pythons in their own enclosures.

[Skiploder]

**sigh**

Says BP's right there in the thread title.

We all know this is the BP keeping paddling pool - it's designed to be.

Do you honestly think the best advice we can give in this instance is "maybe but it's complicated and you will have to know a bit more to avoid problems"? We do have to give some kind of answer after all every time the question gets asked without really knowing the members level of experience.

Or have I just been up too long and taking things too seriously again?

I hate 4am.


dr del

You are assuming Mr. Moderator, that I am referring to the OP's question.

Read the advice given, specifically where it references reptile in general. The problem is not the question, but the answer.

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.

The answer is wrong. If anyone wants to debate the aggression, fighting, for the love of God - DOMINANCE? - cannibalism, risk of disease transmission in established groups, etc. issues for the umpteenth time? I'm game. Let's start a new thread and I'll put this BS to rest once and for all. Just like the pine debate, like the myth that IBD cannot lie dormant indefinitely and strikes down pythons quickly or just like almost every other canned lazy answer that can trace it's roots back to Melissa Kraplan and her campaign of misinformation.

The best advice is not to do it, but explain the CORRECT reasons - namely that it takes experience and more time, space and effort than keeping them separate. Not a load of internet myths and half truths that gets barfed up on every thread where this question is asked.

[Trackstrong83]

Can't we all just get along?

[wilomn]

BP's should not be housed together at all.


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.

Seriously? After being here all this time you still regurge this crap? You really should know better.

[KMG]

So Skiploder you have or do keep snakes together? If so I would like to know how you set them up and what your experience doing it has taught you. I'm not trying to do any more than learn what you have found while doing it and I am seriously asking. Not trying to judge or pick a fight.

I Think it would be great if you started a new thread about it.

[Skiploder]

So Skiploder you have or do keep snakes together? If so I would like to know how you set them up and what your experience doing it has taught you. I'm not trying to do any more than learn what you have found while doing it and I am seriously asking. Not trying to judge or pick a fight.

I Think it would be great if you started a new thread about it.

There are certain species - philodryas spp, psesutes, spilotes, thrasops, rhamnophis, etc. that are almost impossible to breed without keeping pairs together year round.

However, in order to do so a keeper must:

(1) Provide an enclosure of adequate size.

(2) Provide multiple usable thermo-regulation zones.

(3) Provide multiple usable hides and microclimates as necessary.

(4) Understand the importance of separating snakes when feeding them and understand the importance of proper prey size and food intervals. The propagation of the "cannibal" myth in non-ophiophagus snakes is due to operator error - keepers to stupid to either supervise or separate cohabitating animals when feeding them. One or two pictures of owner/operator induced errors was all it took to convince people that this is an unavoidable issue.

(5) Ensure that properly sexed animals are housed together.

(6) Bump up the cleaning regiment to account for the waste production of two animals.

(7) Understand that a regurge is not vomiting and vomiting is not a regurge. A regurge is a mild event usually induced by stress after feeding and not involving the digestive system. Vomiting is when a prey item is thrown up after the digestion process has begun and is a much more serious event - causing trauma to the digestive system including and esophagus.

In the rehashed, endlessly puked up series of non-reasons to cohabitate, a regurge situation is always discussed. A regurge is a non-event. If one of your cohabitated snakes regurge, you can tell from the color of the prey item laying on the floor of the cage which snake regurged. If you don't pay attention to such details, start to. If both prey items are the same color, the snake without the lump regurged. If the prey item was small and no lump is evident, look for the animal not basking.........I could go on and on but you get the point.

(8) Properly quarantine animals - period. The odds of having a properly quarantined snake spontaneously getting sick is almost diddly over squat. Health issues that arise in long term, established and properly quarantined animals are almost always the result of bad husbandry practices.

(9) Understand that stress is the result of bad husbandry, not cohabitating acceptable species properly. Stress induced illness in cohabitated snakes is because the keeper has not adequately provided the space, the thermoregulation zones, the security and the microclimates for two animals.

(10) If you want to skip a breeding season, know enough about the snake species that you are keeping to avoid creating environmental situations that trigger mating.

(11) Realize that the number one reason to not cohabitate animals is that it is more expensive and more work than doing it separately.

Now if someone wants to debate dominance in mated pairs of snakes, defend the overuse of the term regurge (which I am also guilty of - I gave up trying to change the forum dogma on this terminology years ago), the prevalence of communicable diseases in properly kept and quarantined snakes, go run your cursed Google searches and let's have at it.

[33rpm]

Can't we all just get along?

Humans never have...and never will.

[KMG]

Totally agree.

But if your not breeding would you still say the snakes could be kept together by someone closer to the entry level. I think that was the real issue of the thread.

I think the simple answer for a entry level keeper should always be no. As for an advanced keeper like yourself I have no problem with you trying new and different things.