Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if it would be wise to house my normal male and my tiger female together? they are both about three feet. I have had my two burms together for a few months and have not had a problem.

I, as well as several other keepers here, highly discourage the keeping of any snakes together except for the purposes of breeding. First reason is that it is so much more easy to contaminate one snake with an illness from another. Secondly is feeding. If the snakes are fed together then you must feed outside the enclosure and this is a strongly discouraged practice when we are talking about large snakes. It creates an extremely stressfull environment for the snakes which could lead to regurgitation. It also places the keeper(you)in a situation that could very easily become dangerous. Most pythons stay in the feed mode even after they have just fed and will actively search and look for more food. If it is your hand, arm, or face that the snakes first sees then it could easily mistake you for prey and then you have an incident that could very easily be more than you could handle. Another very impostant thing to know is this. I personally used to house multiple snakes together and feed in seperate containers. One two seperate occassions I had one snake attack the other one. This was after they had both been fed and after they had both been returned to their enclosures. One of them could still smell and taste the rat either on the skin or possibly through the skin and attacked and wrapped the other one. Pulling two 7' pythons off each other is not a pleasant experience let me tell you. Anyway, I hope I have given you enough information and possibly have swayed your decision against housing snakes together. Todd

Thank you for all your help. i have had my two burms together for almost three months and have not had any problems. I have already started saving for another vision cage for my female. My retics are seperat now and thanks to your input will most likely will stay that way until breeding comes around. thanks again