Two ball pythons in same tank, how should I feed them ?

[DamienF]

Hi, first of all, I'm swiss so please forgive my english

I recently bought two young ball pythons, as a matter of simplicity, I put them together in a 55 gal tank. They seem well together.
I'd like to ask you some advice about how to feed them:

Should I put one in a separate tank ?
If so, how should I get it back in his original tank, since I've heard it's not very good to handle him after feeding ?

I feed them f/t by the way.

Thanks a lot for your advice, I'm pretty new in this area !

[sho220]

First of all, I would recommend setting them up in their own enclosures. With appropriate hides, water bowls, heat, etc. Then feed them in those enclosures.

Also, if they're young bp's...a 55 gallon is going to be too big. Look into setting them up in their own sterilite or rubbermaid tubs. It's inexpensive and keeps them happy.

[FatBoy]

Take the 55gal tank to the pet store and trade it for 2 20gal long tanks and set them up seperately. Then just feed them in their living enclosures.

[DamienF]

Thanks for you advice !
The thing is that I already bought this tank, it's not very cheap so I'd like to keep them in it for the moment. When they grow up, I'm planning to move one of them in another 55 gallon tank.

The guy at the pet store said they'd be fine together, and I think he's right, they always stay in the same hide without any conflict.

So if they can't be in a separate enclosure, what would you say about how to feed them ?

[FatBoy]

You should seperate them. If you choses not to then you will have to pay the price if one of the snakes do not thrive like it should, or if one gets sick you have 2 vet bills. A 55 gal tank is TOO BIG even for an adult ball python. Typical pet store employee selling things. You will get much better advice on this website than at a pet store. If you refuse to do what's best for your snakes then atleast get something to make a partition and make the 55 tank into 2 tanks. If you wont do that then both snakes need to be moved to rubbermaid tubs for feeding. Wait at least 30 minutes after feeding to move the snakes back to the 55 tank. Feeding one in the tank will create a sence of dominance in one snake over the other. This will eventually happen anyway unless you seperate them. Good luck.

[chetman7]

like the others said, you should not keep them together.

the ppl at the petstore aren't the most knowledgeable.

if ur not going to listen to the others advise, then feed them separately.. which would be the 2nd logical thing to do. with the first being to listen to the ppl above. people here know a lot more than u think

[spaceturtle]

I think you should stop listening to the guy at the petstore because your current setup is going to be extremely stressful on those snakes. You will likely have feeding problems no matter what method you use to feed them.

Don't worry though. A lot of us have been in your position before, where we received bad advice from a petstore and wasted money as a result.

Go with separate enclosures and make them smaller.

Also, how are you heating the tank? What are the temps like?

[DamienF]

Thanks all of you,
I'll definitely consider getting two smaller enclosures for my pythons, or find a way to separate it into two small parts.

My tank is heated by a heating lamp (40W) and the temps are 90-92 for the warm side, and 80 for the cool side. Humidity is around 70-80% (don't know how to decrease it)...

Here's a picture of my tank:

[spaceturtle]

With a beautiful tank like that I'm not sure what I would do in your position... whether I would try and divide it or just scrap it and start over.

Actually what I would do is buy a red tail boa, put it inside that gorgeous tank, and then put my balls into rubber tubs in a dark spot with low human traffic. Boas make really nice display snakes whereas ball pythons are really shy and prefer to be secluded and alone.

[Rakk101]

Wow that is a nice looking tank