Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have an 18 year old black rat. He is in an 8'x3'x2' enclosure. I was wondering if it would be ok to put an adult corn snake in with him? This is just a thought, I don't even have a corn snake. Please let me know your thoughts.
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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
8.36 rats
Bunch O mice
5.45 chickens
0.1 black rat snake
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

I've always done it without a problem. One major caveat: always feed them separately. Competitive feeding could yield an unwelcome result.

I should have attached this to the first reply.

I am obviously not going to get a corn that is 8 feet long. Would one that is 3-4 feet be ok to house with him?
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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
8.36 rats
Bunch O mice
5.45 chickens
0.1 black rat snake
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

Funny timing on that question. I was just doing some aimless Googling, and I came across this site. Check out the yellow rat and corn snake sitting together:

http://www.citruscounty-fl.com/reptile2.html

As for the feeding point, I'll second it. I have a couple young corns together, and I've always been really careful about feeding them separately, or making sure they each have something in their mouths at the same time on opposite sides of their cage and watching while they swallow. Of course the one time I got careless with them feeding together and ran to answer the phone, I came back to find them wrestling for a fuzzy.

Last thing, if you do ever come up with an 8 foot corn snake, post it.

Billy

Hi

On a related note, smaller scale, we just bought a female bloodred corn and a female licorice stick black rat. Both, I've been told, are 2007. The rat is bigger than the corn, but they are both little babies. Currently they are in separate shoebox Tupperware. Could they go in together eventually?

Antigone

If you have large naturalistc enclosures, and monitor feeding and take care not to allow crossbreeding. It is alright. I would only keep species that overlap in nature. Ex: corn,and black rat, black and yellowrat, etc. They should be from the same environment. I am a pureist. If there were a crossbreeding, I would maesure it was something that was found naturaly in the wild. Such as a greenish ratsnake.(black x yellow cross). I am not a big fan of zoos; however the Bronx Zoo has an awesome native N.Y. State exhibit. In there is a black ratsnake, timber rattlesnake, and a copperhead. When I had a large asian treeviper collection I used to keep macrops and venustus together. They were native to vietnam. They thrived for years. I plan on keeping some of my ratsnakes together in large vision cages. I even think hibernating them together is great like in wild dens. The best way to get a snake to thrive is to try and mimic their natural setting. I feel that for the most part snakes are somewhat social creatures. They may not bond for life like Canadian Geese. But when kept together they seem to stay coiled up together, and aware of each other. Another thing I noticed was when handeling young nervous snakes, I would handel two at a time and they would settle down quicker, and not be as likely to bite. This worked great for me with Tiwan beauties and radiated rat snakes. Sorry for the long post. Cheers Greg

Thank you everyone. My cage is an Animal Plastics cage and is set up "natural" but has aspen instead of dirt. My rat loves to burrow. I found someone that has two 7 year old male corns that currently live together.
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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
8.36 rats
Bunch O mice
5.45 chickens
0.1 black rat snake
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

Aspen is a good choice.So is cypress. Dirt is not a good choice.

Periodically, a discussion is resurrected on this FORUM about housing multiple animals together and there are some excellent opinions on both sides of issue.
Here is a link to one of the previous discussions on this.
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forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1176898,1176898
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Here are pics of the two 7 year old males that I may buy and put with my black rat.

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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
8.36 rats
Bunch O mice
5.45 chickens
0.1 black rat snake
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend

Just make sure you quarentine any new comers! The easy way to house multiple rat snakes together is, have a large enclosure - go ahead and pat your self on the back for that one, it's covered- make sure at least one of them will feed a smaller box like a large sweater box. I personaly would feed both (or all) in a seperate box just to make sure they eat and don't try to eat each other - not common at all with rats snakes, a sill-hungry larger rats snake may smell the lingering oder of the prey and mistake the smaller snake for food... it could happen but most likely wouldn't, just a precaution.
You definately have the room to do it. Switch out to double milled cyprus (adds humidity, smells great and looks good) add a few solid branches and a good sized log and you will get to see how they would interact in the wild...
-Blue

I picked up the 2 seven year old albino male corn snakes on Friday. They have had the same owner for 7 years. They were very hungry and they each ate 3 adult mice prior to being placed in my rats cage. And for the first time in 18 years my black rat ate a f/t mouse. He looked disgusted afterwards and would not eat another. Anyway. My rat is more alert with them in his cage and he hasn't done anything to them. I forgot how little corns are. They are not hanging out together yet.

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Shannon in Reno
2.3 dogs
1.0 cat
Bunch O fancy rats and mice
50 something chickens
0.1 Black rat snake
0.2 Albino corn snakes
0.1 Chissel tooth kangaroo rat
0.1 Rosy Boa
0.1 Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Amazing Boyfriend