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feelin proud of my boa's cage that i basicaly built myself in 6-7 hours non stop. i have a male (5'6) and a female (3'6) in the same cage and they seem to like eachother or something, i always find them together in the hot or cold spots. the cage is 4'long and tall, and 3' deep, and kept fairly warm since it's in a basement with other cages and an electric heater on 24 hours. anyways, i love what i've done for my snakes, and i'd love to see what everyone else does for theirs. if anyone has questions, i'll answer them.

ku
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1.0 Columbian (BCI)
0.1 Suriname (BCC)
0.1 Longicauda (BCL)
0.1 Bolivian (BCA)
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat Snake

after having them for a while seperate i decided to this because the big male(the snake with "the ball in it's court" doesn't have a very big appetite and since he's older (5-6 years) i feel pretty confident that he can tell she's a she and that she if not eaten will become valueable to him later. i'm also pretty sure he recognises that he will be fed no matter what and that he's not trapped with another snake in small cage.

what does someone who's done something like this before think of my ideas?

No offense Patrick, but I think you have a great deal to learn about snakes... and we don't want that to have to happen by you coming home to a pair of dead snakes... or having an incident where you feed one, the other grabs and wraps that one, you intervene, and before you know it, you are alone with 2 adults wrapped around you trying to squeeze the life out of what they think is a big, juicy rat.

Best wishes..
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

Unlike some, I don't think it's a perfect absolute that snakes should be housed individual. It's a very good idea 95% of the time, but provided the housing is large enough and certain other conditions are met, it's not ALWAYS a disaster. Reptile houses in zoos do it all the time.

However, some of your comments are extremely naive, and bear on one of the most important conditions for keeping them together. You male is not going to avoid eating (accidentally) the female because he thinks she is going to be useful to him. That's extremely naive. Snakes DO NOT REASON, EVER, and most importantly they feed out of a reflex. I've seen them try to ingest a wad of damp newspaper because they got it confused with the rodent I'd tried to feed them.

If you keep them together you must remove them from their cage and feed them individually, preferably in another container. This is a good idea anyway with large constrictors, for safety reasons, because it teaches them not to expect food to be in their habitat.

that some accidents have happened after returning the animals to their cages, after feeding..

let me explain...

two snakes in a cage, hungry... feeding day comes.. the snakes smell the rats and are on the prowl, anxious to jump at anything that moves... one snake see's me across the room and makes a sudden movement, the other snake quickly lunges for and grabs that snake, and the war is on...

two snakes in a cage, removed for feeding, finished, returned to the cage. Both seem to be resting, but still have the scent lingering... was just feeding time a few minutes ago... well, one snake makes a move, the other senses the smell or rat fur and/or blood still around the snakes mouth, and grabs that snake by the head! I have seen this many times...

If you will keep them together, and feed them seperate, I suggest waiting until after they have fed, and after they have relaxed, settled down, as in laying down and not looking for more food... then return them to the cage...

When this method was practiced in the past, it proved successful 100% of the time.

Just some more info.

Have a good weekend all! -Joe
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

i don't know how closely you all read my post, but the male has a slow feeding response (he takes aim and all that for a minut or two usualy) and i do feed them seperatly anyways just to make sure. i'd be lieing if i said i haven't tried feeding them together, but it was in the name of science (for me anyways, and potentialy for you) and i found that the big one won't even waste a strike at a mouse so i feed the smaller one first, once she's eating she's not paying any attention to anything else, i could even pick her up while she's eating and she'll never regurgatate or stop eating meanwhile the bigger one has no idea (or response anyways) and i could then feed him without problem. BUT if i feed the big one first, the samller one sees the action and tries to go after the rat. sooo if you take extra special care and have an extra spacey cage, you could have very good luck with keeping two snakes together.

and about the male "waiting" for the female to grow. it's like the old saying goes. "it's not what you say it's what you prove", so i'm gonna keep on paying close attention to there behavior, and hopefully i'll figure something out. i personaly think the boa constrictors are smarter then we think.