Reptile & Amphibian Forums

would it be possible to house a breeding pair or ratsnakes together and for hibernation, remove one of them and keep them seperate for the first couple feedings after hibernation b4 you put them together .they will still breed right? any way it would make chances of them breeding go down ? would it make there attraction levels go down or anything?

If you really need to, you can cool them together. If they are both well, it won't hurt them. When you warm them up to start feeding them again, they should be in separate cages. Keep them this way until after your female has shed. She should now be ready to breed. It is at this point that you introduce her to the male in his cage.

After coupling, remove the female, give her a few days to recover, and introduce her to the male again. Repeat this a few more times, and then keep them apart until you are ready to cool them again.

There have been many posting as why one should not house snakes together. I am sure if you scan some of the back postings, you can find plenty of posts telling why this is not a good way to keep your snakes.

Best of luck with your breeding projects,

Rick

Mother with eggs

i cant find anything on whut i nee dto knwo , too many posts since then .
why shouldnt i house snakes together? besides possible trouble during feeding ?

Transferrence of ilness is at the top of the list, if one regurges who did it if you didn't witness it? It is possible for one to cannibalize the other and they may stress each other out. Can you understand Parseltongue? LOL! It has been covered many, many times look a little harder, do your homework!
Todd Hughes

Not sure if they were refering to this forum specifically or a more general location as most of the problems housing breeding animals together is not specific to the type of snake and or other reptile.

I assume you know to feed them in a feeding container instead of in their housing but something in your earlier post made me want to double check. Besides the risk of them eating each other by grabbing the same prey you don't want the mfeeding in a container/home that has a substrate as it could be injested along with the food if it adheres to the food.

I think the primary problems with housing them together, assuming the animals in question are normally healthy, is the stress on the animal(reducing imune and complicating breeding) and risk of canibalism(depending partially on species). In terms of stress it will depend in part on how large the enclosure and it's hide locations are. Ideally you want plenty of room for both and room for seperate hide locations of adequate size for each. Even with that it will be more stressful then seperate enc;osures.

thanx sean ,atleast someone can help .

sorry entelope but my computer takes 10 mins to load a page , kinda hurtin, therefor i would come here to see if maybee someone would have a better answer rather than me siting on here for 30 mins tryin to find a page with this info .
well im gonna throw something in with my black rat , im tryin to pair it up . this is the only snake that i dont have paired up becuase its local and i cant sell em around here but i decided to maybee get a yellow rat just 4 something extra to work on this year . im gonna throw em in together and just hope for the best .the cage is rediculously huge , i wen tover board on it and thers plenty of room for comfort .and i went ovr board on jazzing the cage up , this is the last place i think a snake would get stressed it would be more liek freedom i would tihnk .

im not a rookie or anything i know a great deal abuot all reptiles,especialy coloubrids. i keep my reptiles healthy and have never had a problem or a fatality besides still born snakes from livebearers. actualy i usualy take anytype of unhealthy or sick reptriles frmo peopel n doctor em up n find em a good home . evrything you guys covered i already realize
my question would be more of if that , would they lose attraction or interest in each other since there with each other all year ? but hibernation and the coling and changing of cycles is what stimulates them for the spring so theyll probly still breed right? and not just sit there as they usualy do b4 hibernation ? im geting something this week for my black rat , im going to keep them together till jan them seperate and hibernate, then warm em up seperate for a month then introduce them .
i will keep posting on how its going . i dont think i will have any problems, well see . till then
rock on and away with the attitudes . no hard feelings

Regardless of the size of the cage, I would think that housing a "breeding pair" together runs a very high risk of stressing the female out over time. The male may very well not leave her alone, even after he has done the job that you wish him to do. Duffy

true , ive had that problem with chamelions in the past .
well i will see , if he continues to bother her after a week longer than i want him to i will imediately remove him . this is only temporary too , i plan on building a cage in the spring but im moving into an apartment and theres nowere to build anything . kinda a drag