Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know people have been against housing rat snakes communally, for arguably good reasons, most notably the ability to individually monitor a given specimen's feeding, digestion,and shedding.

I originally intended to house my hatchlings individually--even bought a bunch of used kritter keepers to serve that purpose. I was nervous with the security of some of the lids, and opted instead to house them in two ten-gallon tanks (one contains the five females and the other the seven males--note, I have the hypo glades male in quarantine).

I am now in favor of the communal housing. All things equal, the rat snakes themselves opt for each other's company. A hatchling snake will feel more secure in a group and out of three hides will choose the hide with other rat snakes as opposed to coiling up alone. Temps are even in the cages, as there's been no need for an external heat source at this point.

Perhaps this behavior can be attributed to "safety in numbers," as in schooling fish. Whether this is true or not, some sense of security seems evident in their cohabitation.

Interestingly enough, years ago I temporarily housed two female corn snakes together. One was extremely nervous, but actually became a calmer snake while the other shared the cage. I believe this is because the nervous one got used to being "touched" by the other snake, and therefore stopped associating a physical interaction as something to respond negatively to. Both corns continued to feed well and bred that year.

I love that photo! It reminds me of a field herping trip I took to south Florida.

Here is a shot of an australian pine somewhere in Glades County, Florida:

There was a small hole/crevice on the underside of the v-branch. A closer look revealed this:

By gently prodding the snake with a stiff blade of grass/straw, he eventually came flying out of its hiding spot. The funny thing was as I examined the snake, another snake began to peer out from the hole. There ended up being THREE baby snakes in that single hiding spot. Your pic reminded me of that trip to south Florida.

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>>I am now in favor of the communal housing. All things equal, the rat snakes themselves opt for each other's company. A hatchling snake will feel more secure in a group and out of three hides will choose the hide with other rat snakes as opposed to coiling up alone. Temps are even in the cages, as there's been no need for an external heat source at this point.
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I normally have no problem with communal housing of like species. But, you must be diligent in keeping close eye on the animals. It is important to keep in mind that there may/will be individuals with exceptionally strong feeding responses that can trigger even when there is no food present..maybe the way one snake moved might set another off or something. Those snakes then attack their cage mates and if you are not around to stop the fight, one or both may end up dead. I would highly suggest that if you ever see any snake from the group attacking another then separate that individual from the group because that snake will very likely keep repeating that behavior.
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PHWyvern

Thanks for the tip--I will keep my eye out for that. I do separate them for feedings, but as you point out, that's no guarantee against mistakes on their part.

In theory that is a possibility, but I haven't seen this kind of behaviour during 25 years of keeping and breeding snakes, not even once. Besides Rats and Pits, I even kept both juvenile and adult Kings (Brook's, Apalochicola, Eastern, Desert, California, Mexican Black) and Milks (Pueblan, Sinaloan, Honduran) in communal setups, and never lost a single specimen. And these snakes are actually supposed to be ophiophagus. Sure, one can never rule out the possibility for 100%, but with N.A. Ratsnakes chances are nullable.

>>In theory that is a possibility, but I haven't seen this kind of behaviour during 25 years of keeping and breeding snakes, not even once.
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Sure, one can never rule out the possibility for 100%, but with N.A. Ratsnakes chances are nullable.

I have been keeping snakes for 20 years now myself. While it is not common, among the many snakes I have raised communally over the years, there have been a few incidences. I have had a fight between an adult corn snake and an adult eastern fox snake with one snake caught in the process of eating the other - those two were successfully separated and the one being eaten survived. I have had a juvenile corn snake attack and eat another juvenile corn snake - I was not home to stop it from happening. More recently, I have had juvenile black rats attack their own siblings from a clutch of 10 I was raising communally with a similarly sized corn snake. Even though they were very well fed, I occasionally found myself in the evenings (never seemed to happen during the day) having to separate individuals because one would attack another as something would trigger a feeding response out of him. In some instances, even after separating and giving the black rats a cool off period, an hour or so later, the same individual would proceed to attack another of it's siblings. There was even one instance where one of the black rats started a fight with the corn snake. I have since divided the black rats into two smaller groups and put the corn snake off by itself and that seemed to cut down on the fighting, but didn't actually stop it altogether.
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PHWyvern

With communal husbandry I don't mean keeping specimens of different species together in one enclosure, something which I think is a very bad idea. And I think you're right if what you're saying is that it's always best to keep snakes individually, provided each individual will get the space it needs (and deserves). So if it means having to choose between stuffing juvenile ratsnakes into small plastic lunchboxes individually, or keeping small groups of them in much larger plastic sweaterboxes, then the communal setup it will be.

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3.1 Corn (Anery Stripe-Ripple '06/Amber-Jack Straw '06/Snow-Casey Jones '06/Amel Motley-Cosmo '03)
0.1 Baird's Ratsnake (Sugaree '04)
1.0 White Oaks Grey Rat (Tennesse Jed '04)
0.1 IJ Carpet Python (Cassidy '04)
1.0 Western Hognose (Samson '05)
1.1 Shepherd mix (Dylan 8yrs, Porter 3yrs)

My own personal experience is that they will do better separately. I have had them together. I have done this with ratsnakes, cornsnakes, ball and children's pythons and each time the animals did better separated.
I have 23 housed in 5 enclosures right now. But I know when I am not so restricted for space and time that housing each individually gets babies that grow faster and bigger. I see this when I have 'problem' children. This is the baby that doesn't eat well, or at all. I move them to be alone and bingo, they thrive. Put them back in with the bunch and off food they go.
I see the 'sharing' a space as competition for the prime areas. They are like little kids shoving around trying to all get the best seat in the car. There is stress. The reason you find them together is 'cause that spot is the best one, or only one for them all to have to use. I just don't see them benefiting from it. So I guess I would say I don't recommend it but it may or may not hurt them.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny

Man, you're mean. Oh, wait, I'm just a sissy. Seriously, though, good point about the trouble-feeders. I had/have three I consider "trouble-feeders"--they started well after the others ate. I've put those three in a smaller Kritter Keeper, and all have eaten regularly since (though smaller meals--the larger groups are all on xlg pinkies already!).

As for the larger groups, while we can't get into their "minds", I now feel fairly confident in my decision to house them together; this from watching them eat, digest well, and generally cruise around, not to mention Dwight's lucky discovery of the trio in the wild.

sometimes snakes actually prefer the company of specific snakes and will have problems when separated. I have a ~16 year old female emory rat snake. I got her as an adult back in 1994 so estimated she was at a min. 3 years old at the time. She spent 10 years living with my older male amel corn. some years down the road, that corn later died of age related illness. She became depressed. I then matched her up with another adult, but younger male amel. that a friend gave me. She seemed to do much better after that. Then I got a male anery corn. As a trio they got along though the two males would kinda aggravate each other slightly on occasion (mainly after having been fed). Later I tried cutting my snake numbers down and the friend took back the amel. I figured, the emory has the anery corn to have for company.. it didn't work out. Without the amel around, the emory got downright pissy and started picking fights and harassing the anery. So, I took back the amel and my friend found the anery a new home. Since then the emory has been very content. Apparently this emory has a preference for male amel corns as company.
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PHWyvern