I agree on almost every thing. The feeding together is the only thing I do separately. And introduce them at the onset of brumation so they wake up together in the spring.



If you bonded them at a young age. Then you won't need to feed them seperatly!



I made a "natural progression" post below where i described on how you can build up confidence in the snakes. Start by feeding them a mouse in each seprate corner of their unit. Then watch them. next time do the same but add a few mice in the center of the cage. And whatch them again. Pretty soon you will dump a pile of mice in the cage and just watch as they each take one and share.



Now this is the part that took me a long toime. But it is easier when keeping thousands of snakes over the years. So you might NEVER see it in a small collection. .



lets say, by that rare instance, that a pair takes the same mouse at the same time. They will wrap around each other like they will kill each other. But if you sit back and are patient and don't freak out. They ill release the prey and go about their business unharmed. My thought is maybe that they actaully learned to be polite and to make sure this never happens to them again. i don"t know. But with my longer term captives , this never happens. Only with the 2-3 year oldes. So maybe they actaully learn???? hmmm, I have no clue. but it seems strange that my longer term animals alway share.



i see this going after the same mouse in my collection from toime to time. BUT IT IS RARE! And i am sure there are many more times i don't witness it. What i do know is I simply walk out of the room and when I come back everybody is fine. this has happened countless times.



I am now at the point when I am feeding and I hear comotion in a cage. I see the snakes wrapped around each other and I just shrug my shoulders, turn my back and continue feeding the rest and animals and leave. When i return the snakes have eaten and the ones who went after the same mouse are fine.



now this does not happen very often, With my collection it is very rare. maybe 5-10x per season. And that is with a lot of snakes and feeding! But the end result is they still don't KILL each other.



But with all the snakes I am feeding week after week. It never really happens. instead they are POLITE and SHARE their food.



How do i know they are sharing. because when one grabs a nouse or chick the other grabs one and so on. they finsh their meal and continue.



Do you know how many times i have done this? How many snakes and how often and how many large boxes of frozen chicks and mice I go though in a year? The statistics speak for themselves. And even when the rare instance (which before when it ahppened I used to seperate the snakes) i discovered bonded pairs let go and do not kill each other.



i used to beleive like everyone else here. that snakes are like sharks. once they turn on the feeding mode. they won't let go until one of the other is dead. But after actaully watching them to see what happens i was just as surrised as anyone.



So like i said. it happens very rarely that two grab the same mouse. So in your smaller collections, you might never see this happen in your lifetime. But if iy does. Rest assured. no worries.



Now I mentioned before my extensive experince with keeping and feeding snakes together are with rosy boas and Florida kings wand with hybids when i used to keep them about 7-8 yrs ago. So i can't speak on how Cal kings would react or ratsnakes ect. But it is reasonable if snake eaters like eastern getula. Which are known to be snake eatsers more than other kingsnbakes and milsnakes. That other spp woul not be a problem either. Just stating my actual experince and facts. Not going to say that all snakes behave the same. just those I worked with in large numbers..
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