Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 3 red tails just got them a week ago there 6 months old and i went to feed them for first time since i got them i fed one in a cage by her self she ate and i left her in there for a hour after to not stress her out when i moved her again put the other in to feed she ate quick let her sit for awile then when to put her in with the other 2 to get the last one out to fed and i found them in a big ball tring to eat each other they eat f/t pinkies no live stuff. i had to pull them apart and get there teeth out of each other. the one small one seemed to be dead as i was pulling them apart she was all limp and not moing themn started to move and breath again. the bigger look like it was killing it self she was constricting her own head. they both seem fine now got them all seperated now. has anyone ever had to deal with that? and a suggestions on prefenting it in future? I never heard of them doing anything like that, only if you keep them in the same cage together while feeding thats the only time i heard of it. Are they fine to keep together tommorow when i can watch them for awhile? thanks

They still smell the scent of the rodent on the face of the other boas, and are attacking it as though it WAS a rodent. I would simply keep them in separate enclosures. Being as they are very small, this should be a problem at all.

This is much better than having dead boas, right?

~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

I only have a big 4x2x2 encloser for them and a 10 gallon to feed them I spent alot of time and money building it and dont really have the money to build more im unemployed. I was told that i would have no problem keeping them together by severl people i did my reserch before i got them and built the encloser. I was also told after this happened last night that i should wipe the snake off after i feed them with a warm wash cloth, would that work? I keep them in the feeding cage for a hour before i even try to get them out i dont want to stress them out to much.

I can certainly understand the problem, and "most" of the time this works okay housing boas together, but it obviously didn't this past time though. Are they not eating very often?. This could easily be the cause of their wanting to eat each other after they have gotten worked-up after an initial meal(feeding mode).

I would do anything possible to keep that from happening again, if you aren't right there this could be big trouble as you already found out.

Oh,...whatever you do, don't put too much trust in the wiping them off with a cloth theory you heard from someone, their sense of smell is extremely acute, and they might do the same thing again. Although it certainly can't hurt, and it might help remove some scent if it has a tad of soap worked into it before hand.

You could also temporarily use a large plastic storage container as an enclosure until you figure out what to do for permanent housing if you melt a bunch of holes in it with a soldering gun, or drill some, but melting the holes leaves zero mess. But you must be sure to have the top VERY secure.

good luck with things!

~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Would keeping them sepert for 24 hours after feeding possibly work. the smaller of the snakes had feeding issuse after she was born thats why shes smaller then her sisters. they all ate a week ago. before they were shipped to me ive had them since thurs. and they were always all in a ball together basking and never show one bit of agrestion toward each other. Are they usally this aggresive after feeding ive had red tails in the past and never ran into this issue.

Well, when dealing with animal's, there is no one solid answer. They are all individuals with different behaviors.

Sometimes young snakes do not behave quite like they would if they were older and their instinct can sometimes lead them to do things they normally might not do if they were older and more aware about their environment.

I don't know what else to say, except I would make SURE that didn't happen again, no matter what it took. It was no doubt caused by the rodent scent and the movement from the other animal triggered it even more.

This is NOT something I would hope didn't happen again, I would have to make sure.

~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

>> "Would keeping them sepert for 24 hours after feeding possibly work"

Yeah, the longer they were away from each other, the less they would tend to still be in their feeding mode, so yes, that might help a great deal, and it would also help the rodent scent to disappear too.

But I would monitor them very closely for a while afterwards at the very LEAST.

~Doug
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

Ill defenitly keep an eye on them i have alot of time on my hands The two that did that were the none aggesive one the female i was feeding at the time had the bad bone in her body and is very touchy all the time. Thanks for all your advice Doug.

.
-----
"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"