Housing Ball Pythons Together

[Meadow910]

Hello All!
I'm hoping someone can help me out. We adopted a female ball python about 3 years ago. She's doing fabulous. She eats consistently every 4-6 weeks. She's thriving, nearly tripled in size. Two weeks ago a friend of ours found a snake in her driveway and posted the pic on Instagram. I immediately recognized the snake as a ball. It appears to be a pet that got loose. He's definitely used to being handled, a really nice snake. We took it to our local reptile shop and determined it to be a healthy male. We were told it would be ok to house them together after a short quarantine period. After doing some research I'm seeing a lot if info pointing toward not keeping them together. Now I'm not sure what to do. Our female is in a 75 gallon tank and as I said thriving. The new male is a bit smaller. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[KMG]

I personally would not.

[rlditmars]

Ball pythons are not typically communal animals. When they are forced into a setting where they have to cohabitate, one will tend to exert its dominance over the other. This leaves the submissive animal stressed and likely you may have feeding problems. Worst case scenario, I have heard but not experienced first hand, acts of cannibalism. Better to seperate and not risk the possible outcomes.

[OhhWatALoser]

When they are forced into a setting where they have to cohabitate, one will tend to exert its dominance over the other.

I know this is repeat all over the place, but I'm curious, is there any actual evidence of them exerting dominance vs just not paying attention to what was sitting there first? I mean in the wild they find them in groups in holes and they are not forced to be there. Just seems to me like they just go w/e they want when it's bed time, despite another snake being there or not. I'm not calling you out or anything, I just see it repeated all over and was wondering if someone actually had some evidence or if it was just another runaway rumor.

However, I would never recommend someone to keep ball pythons together. There is zero advantage to it. You need a bigger cage than normal, which chances are two cages will cost less than one big one. You still buy the same amount of stuff you would buy anyway to go in the cage. People like to see it as saving money or space, but you really don't save much of either comparatively. Then you run into issues of how the actual snakes are going to take it. If any illness appears, which one has it or do both have it now? You have to feed outside the cage now and need some sort of container for the snakes to feed in (more space taken up). Will the snake actually eat outside the cage? I know I have a few who wouldn't.

It's not that you can't successfully keep ball pythons together. Just there is no advantage to it and many other risks that get tacked on because of it.

[rlditmars]

I know this is repeat all over the place, but I'm curious, is there any actual evidence of them exerting dominance vs just not paying attention to what was sitting there first? I mean in the wild they find them in groups in holes and they are not forced to be there. Just seems to me like they just go w/e they want when it's bed time, despite another snake being there or not. I'm not calling you out or anything, I just see it repeated all over and was wondering if someone actually had some evidence or if it was just another runaway rumor.

However, I would never recommend someone to keep ball pythons together. There is zero advantage to it. You need a bigger cage than normal, which chances are two cages will cost less than one big one. You still buy the same amount of stuff you would buy anyway to go in the cage. People like to see it as saving money or space, but you really don't save much of either comparatively. Then you run into issues of how the actual snakes are going to take it. If any illness appears, which one has it or do both have it now? You have to feed outside the cage now and need some sort of container for the snakes to feed in (more space taken up). Will the snake actually eat outside the cage? I know I have a few who wouldn't.

It's not that you can't successfully keep ball pythons together. Just there is no advantage to it and many other risks that get tacked on because of it.

I cannot say I have seen any specific studies, but I will say when I first started keeping BPs and didn't know differently I housed a couple together. I saw this behavior where the same snake ended up on top almost without exception and the other did seem to be extremely skiddish and a problem feeder. Once seperated the behavior was diffenent and the eating became normal. I know its an extremely small sample size, but it did seem to support the hypothesis. So I don't have reservations about perpetuating the theory even if it some day proves to be a myth. I agree with your comments of "no advantage, and added risk" so why not err on the side of caution?

[SaintTawny]

We adopted a female ball python about 3 years ago.... The new male is a bit smaller.

While I wouldn't house two snakes of the same sex together for reasons stated by others above, you should not house two snakes of opposite sex together. Odds are you will end up with eggs, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it sounds like they're both normals, and you could very suddenly find yourself with 6 or 8 or more normal ball pythons to house. Normals are beautiful and have merits of their own, but unfortunately they are notoriously difficult to find good homes for.

Even if you didn't incubate the eggs, the breeding process is exceptionally taxing on the female's body, and you might find her (and even his) condition deteriorating rather quickly if they continually copulate. A 3 year old female is almost certainly mature enough to breed, even if she's not "big enough" by a breeder's standards, just like a 13-14 year old human girl is capable of becoming pregnant despite all recommendations against it. The male may be smaller, but they become sexually mature much faster than the females, and no matter how many grams he weighs now you can't be certain that he isn't capable of it.

[Skiploder]

I know this is repeat all over the place, but I'm curious, is there any actual evidence of them exerting dominance vs just not paying attention to what was sitting there first? I mean in the wild they find them in groups in holes and they are not forced to be there. Just seems to me like they just go w/e they want when it's bed time, despite another snake being there or not. I'm not calling you out or anything, I just see it repeated all over and was wondering if someone actually had some evidence or if it was just another runaway rumor.

However, I would never recommend someone to keep ball pythons together. There is zero advantage to it. You need a bigger cage than normal, which chances are two cages will cost less than one big one. You still buy the same amount of stuff you would buy anyway to go in the cage. People like to see it as saving money or space, but you really don't save much of either comparatively. Then you run into issues of how the actual snakes are going to take it. If any illness appears, which one has it or do both have it now? You have to feed outside the cage now and need some sort of container for the snakes to feed in (more space taken up). Will the snake actually eat outside the cage? I know I have a few who wouldn't.

It's not that you can't successfully keep ball pythons together. Just there is no advantage to it and many other risks that get tacked on because of it.

Since so many people STATE that they exert dominance - then it must be true. Just like the don't climb, don't eat birds and are ophiophagus. All pure BS.

Or, perhaps that particular bit of forum BS started because some idiot try to cohabitate them incorrectly and noticed them trying to share optimum thermoregulation zones. I guess to an utter idiot, that behavior could be misconstrued as dominance.

Why are we glossing over the "short QT" comment? They should not be kept anywhere near each other and strict QT measures should be followed after a "lengthy" period.

To the OP - don't keep them together. Despite what you'll hear, it can be done. However doing so requires a lot of specialized care and some advanced husbandry techniques. Follow proper QT procedures for the new animal and keep it in it's own enclosure.

[OhhWatALoser]

I cannot say I have seen any specific studies, but I will say when I first started keeping BPs and didn't know differently I housed a couple together. I saw this behavior where the same snake ended up on top almost without exception and the other did seem to be extremely skiddish and a problem feeder. Once seperated the behavior was diffenent and the eating became normal. I know its an extremely small sample size, but it did seem to support the hypothesis. So I don't have reservations about perpetuating the theory even if it some day proves to be a myth. I agree with your comments of "no advantage, and added risk" so why not err on the side of caution?

Did you happen to see anything that seem to suggest a dominance type of role, instead of say the snake just curling up on top of the other one because that's where the heat or hide was and just never acknowledging the snake being there at all?

[Meadow910]

Thanks for all the replies. The snakes have been separate now for almost 2 weeks. I guess that's how it will stay. The only reason I contemplated housing them together was because my local reptile shop said it would not be problematic. I myself am a licensed veterinary technician and have the best interest of both snakes in mind.

[Cyndymei]

Thanks for all the replies. The snakes have been separate now for almost 2 weeks. I guess that's how it will stay. The only reason I contemplated housing them together was because my local reptile shop said it would not be problematic. I myself am a licensed veterinary technician and have the best interest of both snakes in mind.

Despite having the best intentions, most pet stores usually don't have the best advice. My favorite one was when I got my snake was asking if the employee had any other boxes to put him in other than an enormous cricket box, and he said it's okay for the ball python to slide around in a box since they 'fall out of high treetops all the time' and he wouldn't be hurt TOO badly. This was coming from a very reputable pet store who took good care of their reptiles and I'm just glad I brought my own materials to transport him in.