Posted by:
HerpZillA
at Fri Sep 28 12:50:32 2007 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by HerpZillA ]
First I will say I agree with all you said. But I've had herps from about 1972, and at one point had about 15 monitors and tegus in a single 10' x 12' room. It was common back then to mix stuff, and I sat and watched those guys interact all the time and never in 2 years was there an issue. BUT, I would never do that today.
>1. Cannibalism. I would say extremely rare in adults. Babies seem to have a bigger issue. Feed separate, and this may sound strang, but when I had a lot of small hognose, I had a space issue. I housed some together and they too as babies seem to find the smell of the pinkies on the heads of the other snakes. I placed them back in the tank together and gave a quick fine mist of water. I'm retired and bored. I'd watch these guys for hours after feeding. The water spray really made a difference in them sniffing the other snakes. But is space is not an issue, and feeding response is, I say house separate.
>>2. Stress. Reptiles are extremely susceptible to stress related illnesses.
This one is probably more species oriented. But again a flash back to the 70's, we kept a 17' retic a 12' burm a 13' suriname and a 9' African rock all together in a small cage by today's standards. Would I do this today? NO! But stress? The suri was a puppy dog, the retic was great as was the burm. NOW the rock was stressed, but they all were back then as they were all the northern sp. We had them together years. I see more stress mixing corns, if they've been housed separately. They seem to know they are the same sp, and check each other out a lot. But have also been to peoples houses that keep them together and (I guess) once they identify each other, they seem fine? I say seem, as I can not read their minds. I just wonder about this stress issue? I think there is a lot more to it than we understand. IMHO
>>3. Problem identification. Totally agree
So housing separate clearly outweighs together. I just don't have the hard feeling about it on some animals. Clearly Jackson chameleons have an issue. I housed many females with out issue. But males had to be separate. But I also know people that have raised sibling chameleons with 1.1 in a cage, and if they separated them they stopped eating? So separation was clearly a stress in that case.
Again I just don't think we understand all the dynamics in herp relations. Again this is just my opinion.
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Thanks for reading.
Big Tom
www.herpzilla.com
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RE: I'm strongly ambivalent - HerpZillA, Fri Sep 28 12:50:32 2007