Posted by:
Bluerosy
at Tue May 11 23:26:23 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by Bluerosy ]
Stressed? hardly! Unless they are new introductions and that causes stress. That is why i suggest putting them in groups early on and during the winter when activity slows down.
As far as a container. i keep them in the long iris boxes and smaller blanket boxes. Same thing as keeping one smnake applies to keeping two or more together.Same cage setup and same everything..
I do espouse to feeding all winter and allowing a hot spot and a cold spot. I manage this easily as the room i keep them in is not well insulated. It gets lose to freezing a few days out of the year and then i use a room heater just to get the temps up to 40F. I do this more for me than the snakes as it is to cold to work in the room.
The snakes have a hot area. It is interesting the snakes CHOOSE to stay on the cold side unless they are digesting a meal. So that tells me they try to conserve energy at all times and as much as possible within a sweater box.
They eat at 40f and just move over to the hotspot. So they prefer the lower temps much more than we prevously thought. Putting them at 72-85 is what we think they need. But really it's natural for them to go from hot to cold WHEN THEY WANT! It also makes shipping duringthe winter a charm as i know my snakes can take the cold weather and as long as it does not freeze inside the box.
i DON'T KNOW WHAT ALL THIS HAS TO DO WITH KEEPING THEM TOGETHER. Except that maybe trying to duplicate things closer to what they experince in nature they are less likely to act out of character. I also feed my snakes often or at least "offer" food. If the food item is not eaten i simply remove and place into another cage for them to eat. I never check to see if both snakes try to eat the same food item or worry about attacks due to the food thrown in.. i throw 5 or 5 chicks or mice into a cage and walk away. So far they have been extremly polite at feeding and i am surprised that they do not kill each other because of not wanting to share.
Summer time is a bit tough for me because my snake room gets hot. So i don't use heat or hot spots. So everthing is turned off. I know it is not the best thing for them but i am a cheap-skate and running a cooling unit is over my budget.
The summer heat only lasts util sept, so they experince a cycle similar to what is going on outside. This works well for me as i can always tell when they start getting interested. It is when the flower tree in my yard start to bloom. The snakes seem to be in tune with the ouside weather. Not the temsp.. So sometimes they breed late and sometimes early. either way this setup is blindproof and idiot proof. That works perect for someone like me.
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RE: Well it finally happened... - Bluerosy, Tue May 11 23:26:23 2010