In my experience, Balls are NOT social animals. Just this weekend I had two males get into a fight while they were being moved. Hissing, mounting each other, even some head smacking. Nasty business.

Another individual I know had two females housed together and one kept trying (we think) to smother the other. She was larger and always laying completely on the smaller female. I think in the wild this would be an effective mechanism to remove competition for food because the smaller female definitely would not have been able to hunt or strike while she was being sat on.

Males and females together tend to create constant stress on one another. The male may be constantly waiting for the female to be ready to breed, which could result in longer fasting and even moodiness. The female is going to be haunted by this male waiting to mate.

Perhaps other keepers have had more success keeping more than 1 BP in a cage, but I have not heard of it.
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25 year old 0.1 from Lincoln, NE
Ball Pythons - 0.1 Pastel, 1.0 Pastel het Pied, 0.1 Pied, 0.1 Cinn, 1.0 Black Pewter, 1.0 Woma (hidden gene?), 0.1 Yellowbelly, 2.1 Normals
Kingsnakes - 1.0 L. m. thayeri, 0.1 L. m. thayeri X L. alterna, 1.0 L. g. californiae
Other - 0.1 Whitesided P. catenifer sayi, 1.0 H. nascicus, ?.? Chrysemys picta, 0.1 crazy cat, 1.0 husband

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• question about cage mates - youknowpat, Mon Jan 30 00:11:10 2012
• RE: question about cage mates - Bolitochrome, Mon Jan 30 08:38:44 2012