Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hello i got three retics i was wondering if an 8 by 4by 2 is large enough

thats a pretty good sized cage for sure but are you planning on housing them all together,and what size are they now??..

jim....

yes i plan on them being together. right now they are 5 feet max.

they'll be ok for "short" while longer. Keep in mind that retics really should be kept alone as adults unless you have a HUGE cage. YOu never want to feed 2 snakes in the smae cage, and as they get bigger, feeing in a seperate cage won't be an option due to the fact that after a meal it's dangerous to move them... for you and the snake. Also, make sure that 2 males are never together once they are mature. Durring breeding season they will tear eachother up really bad.
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- Loren Morales

As the previous poster stated, housing multiple retics requires a huge cage and 2 males should never be housed together, in fact if there is another male around, a male may attack a female out of confusion. Back to the cage size. I have a friend that has 3 adult retics (about 15-16 ft each) in one cage that measures 20ft x 8 ft x 6 ft. It also has multiple ledges as to give the snakes an oppertunity to get away from each other. Keep these sizes in mind as your snakes are growing as I feel if you are housing multiple animals together, this is the MINIMUM and larger would be adviseable.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons, boas, dogs, cats, fish, an amel tiger retic female, a couple sulcatas and a few other odds and ends.

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

Josh nailed it. Really take in to consideration that just one bite from one retic to another can cause enough damage to kill one of your snakes. If the damage from the bite doesn't kill the snake, it'll leave BAD scarring which can not only lead to pricey vet bills and shedding problems, it will also enduce major stress to the bitten snake which could lead to poor health and not eating... which could lead to potential death of your retic. I've seen 1st hand people's snakes after being bitten and it's nothing you want to deal with. I wish you luck and if you have any other questions or ever need advice please feel free to email me at loren_mps@yahoo.com. If you need my number email me and I'll give it to you.
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- Loren Morales

As the other posters have stated, adult retics, and even juveniles in my opinion, should be housed seperately. I have 5.5 retics ranging in size from yearlings to 19 feet and 165+ pounds and thier feeding response alone is enough to keep me from housing any of them together. Another thing to consider is that if you have aggressive retics, and they get agitated due to feeding or just an off day, getting one out of the cage while the other is trying to "defend" itself could result in a life threatening situation for you and the snakes. Bottom line just don't do it.
As for cage size I keep my males in 6'X3' visions or 6'X3' to 7'X3' Animal Plastics cages. The adult females are in 8'X3' Animal Plastics caging or for my 19 footer a 8'X4' plastic cage I made myself. My opinion is that females need at least an 8'X3' cage to be comfortable as adults. All the caging has heat on 1/3 of the enclosure to 90 degrees for a hot spot (maintained with heat tape, heat cable, Stanfield heat mats, and/or infered heat depending on the cage. Temp maintained with a thermostat/rheostat combination) and a back ground temp of 82 degrees during the day with a drop to 80 at night. I keep the ventilation adequate but not so much that I cannot keep the humidity between 55 to 70 percent. I take it up to 90+ % when they are getting ready to shed by covering up just a little more of the ventilation (with plastic pieces velcroed to the ventilation holes) and heavy misting twice per day.
This may be more information then you needed but I hope it helps.
Best regards,
Shane

1.1 Jamp X Super Dwarf retics
1.1 Sulawesi retics
1.1 Albino tiger retics
1.0 Yellow head retic
0.1 Silver retic
1.0 Moloccan white-eyed retic
0.1 Super tiger retic
0.1 Green Anaconda
0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.1 Amethystine python
1.1 African Rock pythons
0.1 Amazon tree boa
1.1 Blue tongued skins
1.0 Ornate box turtle