Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a retail about 2 feet long and I was thinking about getting a bum the same size will they live together as long as
I build a big cage to house them they are both very beautiful
And I would like to keep them together.

Thanks,

If you have to house two snakes together then they should at least be the same species> getting a Burm the same size as your Boa is like getting a baby elephant the same size as your dog. It will only be a matter of a very short time that they are the same size. A boa will be between 5-6 feet for years and maybe for life, a Burm will only be that size for about a month! Their growth rate the first couple of years is amazing and by two the Burm could already be 14 and near 75-100lbs! Easily able to crush the 12 Lbs Boa by trampling it.
Second the Python and the Boa come from two completely different areas and have different remittance to different things. A parasite that a Python would normally carry as part of their digestive track process could prove to be deadly to a Boa and visa versa.
I have always like Burms, they are gentle beautiful snakes that come in a huge array of morphs. I have owned a few over the years, but the size of them always becomes an issue. Once you have to switch to rabbits, Chickens and small Hogs to feed an animal it then becomes very costly, not to mention if there are any small children in the house it also becomes very dangerous. Snakes escape, I don’t care how careful you are it happens, and a 100 lbs snake should not be in the same house as a small child.
Good Luck
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

I agree. The two should not be housed together. I have seen it done before by people who have posted pics. In those pics you always see the boa being squashed and not too happy about it.
John
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"To be the best..........You must lose your mind."

Thanks everyone!!

In my collection, I have 5 adult boas and 1 adult burm. None of my adult boas exceed 7' and all are probably in the 10-12lb range - though I have a couple of females that MAY reach 8' as the years progress, they will NEVER be anywhere near the size of my burms. My adult burm is roughly 6 years old (I'm her 3rd owner, so I don't have the exact hatch date) and she is currently 13' long and about 85-90lbs. Just her size alone would prevent her being housed with another snake, much less one that will be so much smaller and easily crushed by her bulk. Again as Hoppy said, it doesn't even begin to take into consideration the bacteria and/or parasites normally found in both species that would not be compatible with snakes from totally different areas. A third reason is that while the requirements are similar, the care is not exactly the same. Burms tend to need a higher humidity than do boas, even though it's within the same range. Boas can easily thrive at the low end of the humidity range (as low as 40% so long as you mist them during sheds), whereas a burm needs at least 60% humidity (not just for clean sheds but humidity also seems to be linked to their tendency for respiratory infections). Basically, unless the animals are the same species, they should never be housed together.

Raven