Posted by:
zach_whitman
at Tue May 17 14:28:29 2011 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by zach_whitman ]
These were cal kings and corn snakes. I set up two groups of each. Each group has one male and two females. (12 snakes total, 6 cals and 6 corns). I kept them together as hatchlings until they shed as I usually do. I then separated all of them to make sure that they were feeding well. After five or six meals I put them back together at about a month old. I initially set them up in 20 gal long tanks so that I had plenty of room for lots of hides, and I could observe them carefully. Nor they are in my normal adult rack system.
I thought it was interesting which ones chose to be together. Each tank had at least 8 or nine hides with lots of repetition of parameters (IE 3 dry hides all on the cool side, 2 humid hides, 3 hides on the warm side, plus a deep substrate so they could hide wherever they want.) So that each snake could choose to be by themselves. I figured if I saw this behavior I would take it as a sign that they preferred to be alone and I would end my group housing trial. Well, to this day the corn snakes are almost always crammed under the same hide. As the kings have aged they have somewhat less of a tendency to do this, but I still find two or sometimes all three, sleeping together on a regular basis.
[ Hide Replies ]
|
RE: Spontaneous hibernation & group housing - zach_whitman, Tue May 17 14:28:29 2011