wow, $8,000 worth of snakes... you must have some very nice snakes

most people on this forum believe that keeping snakes together in one enclosure is not in their best interest. ball pythons are not social critters... and one will show dominance over another (and we look at them and think they are cuddling). often it leads to feeding problems and stress related problems.

the bottom line for most people is that IF one of your snakes becomes sick... then chances are all the others in the same enclosure will also get sick - if you have a runny stool... you don't know which snake's poop it was. if you get parasites or mites... everyone ends up with them.

balls really like a nice enclosure (a rubbermaid or sterilite sweater box works great and is very inexpensive) with two identical hides. one of the warm side and one on the cool side. with some UTH or since you have so many snakes a nice rack system would probably do a better job for you with some flexwatt tape for heating.

any chance you have a pic or two of your snakes belly so we can perhaps see what it looks like. it 'sounds' like belly rot to me... but pics would sure help a lot.

if it was me... and i had $8,000 worth of snakes... i'd want to protect my investment with proper housing and husbandry