Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello everyone! Looking to get my first pair of milks and got a gew questions. I'm not new to snakes. I currently have 1.1 pair western hognose and my daughter's okeetee corn. I know how some people feel about multi-housing but is there any serious risk of canniblism between them? I keep records of my snakes feeding,shedding, etc! I also feed outside of the cage regardless of single housed or not. Just wanted to see what the "experts" on here feel with milks. Thanks, Zack

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Everything I know about life I learned from Nintendo!!!

Ask yourself this question:

"How would I feel/explain it to that pretty little girl if one snake gobbled the other (and perhaps died in the process)?"

You accepted the responsibility; now accept the cost. Get two enclosures. You're gonna have these snakes 20 years, so do it right from the beginning.

Just because you haven't had your home burn down doesn't mean you don't need insurance.

Just because you haven't died in a car wreck, doesn't mean you don't need your seatbelt.

Just because your other snakes haven't been cannibalized, doesn't mean they (or these) won't.

Walt

Thanks for the quick response. Also, thanks for the harsh words! All I asked was for an opinion and then you want to lecture me. Thanks anyways I'll take it into consideration.
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Everything I know about life I learned from Nintendo!!!

HARSH??? LECTURE???

you sure have a thin skin. you asked for advice, and I just tried to make my point.

Milk snakes are King snakes and are known to eat other snakes , where as the hognose and the corns do not prefer to do that. During times of Breeding milksnakes are put together but even still watched over for this possible canibalism instinct to kick in. It is wisest and safest to house these snakes seperately due to this instinct. Milksnakes can be wonderful pets however they do require more housing room if you are going to keep multiples. Good luck with your snakes if you decide to get them.

Dawn

Thanks, Dawn. I wasn't sure if they were they were like kingsnakes in that respect or if they were as you said more like corns. None of the care sheets I found for them even mentioned the topic so I wasn't sure. Thanks again!
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Everything I know about life I learned from Nintendo!!!

The right choice is to NOT keep kings or milks together in the same enclosure. Even if you watch them for a little while and everything seems to be fine eventually there will be a problem.

My question to you is what is the reason that you would like to house them together?? just curious...

~ Mike

I think it's the same reason everybody wants to... they want to save money and space.

Walt

they just don't talk about it on the forums much...

I've been told by some folks who have kept milks for years that if you start a pair on mice from day one, raise them to adults, and THEN put them together, the chances of a pair of milks eating each other is slim.

There are other good reasons why it is better to keep them separate. It is harder to keep good records if you house snakes together though...if you see some funky poop (for lack of a better term) you will spend some time guessing which snake it came from. If one gets sick, there is a better chance that the other will.

If you decide to put them both in one cage, please post to let everyone know how it turns out. I think there are too many people out there who make judgements without actual experience. I would love to hear about your experiences with housing them together...good or bad. This is how we learn.

I've kept eastern kings for 20 years. You put another snake in a cage with a w/c eastern king, and the king will eat it if it is smaller than the eastern. Put another snake in a cage with a cb eastern king who has always been fed mice, and he will ignore it most of the time. I can tell you that first hand from years of trial and error.

Good luck.

Michael

Thanks Michael. I've been housing my western hoggies that are the same size (1.1) and they both eat f/t pinkies in separate containers and they are doing excellant. I have kept a close eye on them since I got them eight months or so ago and no issues. But, thanks for the reply.
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Everything I know about life I learned from Nintendo!!!

I asked the same ? about a pair of baby Hog Island boas, and a poster brought up a good point. He said it would not be a good idea for me to keep my Hog Island babies together because they may breed too early, which could damage or kill the female. The eastern king I just got ate its deli cup mate on the way to a show before I bought him, so it does happen. If your milks are babies, you could put a divider piece of glass down the center of your 55 gal. and use it for both. I'm not sure about making the top of the center glass escape proof though. Derek

You are right that people do it and do not post about it. I am one of those. I have many snakes housed in groups including milks but I would say, if you have the room and cages, house them separate. I have never had a snake eat a cage mate except for a boa.

As far as eastern kings I would never house them with any other snake. Their feed response is just to strong. Put it this way, have you ever had a milk miss a food item and then go hide because it hit the cage. I have many times. That has never happened with a eastern king. Instead I have been chased across the room by one when I went to change his water with no food scent around.

The downs in multi housing is not the cannibalism factor but instead the illness factor that was mentioned and also a possible loss in feedings. I have found over the years that I need to separate some of my milks because they just won't eat. They get to stressed out. After being in their own cage until the following breeding season I reintroduce them and they often take over the cage.

I am hoping to build a Applegate type whannabe cage with some variation for other reasons. I hope to be able to have a hot top end that is very hot and a bottom end that is in the 50 degree range so I can watch where my snakes choose to live at various times of the year. Over time I hope to be able to vary things and find the best setup for my snakes.

You see in the wild a snake that is fed the same as a captive grows more than the average growth for a captive. I have talked to people who studied western diamond backs that gave wild animals supplemental food with a control group in captivity and the wild ones grew faster. There are a lot of variables of course but our current caging has a lot to be desired.

Later Jason

Thanks for the insight Jason. I totally agree with what you said about the feeding response in L. getula. I've had some of mine bite me and constrict my hand because it smelled like a mouse or another snake. That being said, I've kept corn snakes and rat snakes in pairs and trios for years. Haven't gotten the balls up to put my Pueblans together yet, but maybe when they are full grown.

I would love to hear more about that cage once you get it up and going. I have recently moved my animals out of sweater boxes and into aquariums (a pretty expensive move) so that I could observe them more, plus give them a little more room to move around and more choices.

Thanks again,
Michael

I am totally with you on the aquarium over drawers. I also have some 6 foot, 5 foot, and four foot wood cages. These are great when the snake is active. It seems that the three sides of wood give a little more security to the snakes and then again it could be me.

The cage I am gonna work over is a one piece unit that currently has three 4x2x2 cages on top of each other so that it is 4widex6tallx2deep. I want to put in more shelves and a chiller in the bottom with a spot light style bulb on the top. I just need to get off my butt and do it.

Later Jason

Sounds awesome, but also sounds like a lot of work... I love to keep my Pits in 55 gallon aquariums. They are so inquisitive...I get on the treadmill, which is also in my den, and they all come out to see what's going on. I just love them!

I think that it provides me an opportunity to learn a lot as well. Seeing the eastern kings out in the early morning, the pines out during an overcast day, or the corns out just after dark re-enforce what I've already learned in the field and teach me more about the niche of each of these animals. I used to keep rat snakes and I would mist their cage once in a while...this would send them out on the crawl every time. I started cruising after rains in the evening during summer and found more rat snakes than every before (found 80 of them in 2004).

Just cool stuff.

Take it easy,
Michael

It is perfectly safe to house most lampropeltis together. Getulus have a higher tendency for canabalism so I would caution not to house them together, but you can safely house triangulum together as long as you meet a few minor husbandry requirements. Bob Applegate houses ALL of his lampropeltis together 365 days a year and has been doing this for over 20 years now. Tad Fitzgerald wrote an article "Cohabitating Lampropeltis" Go to his website "CaptiveBred.com" and click on the "articles" link on the home page.
A lot of people that respond to these questions have no actual experience or are just unqualified to even answer. You want to get information from people whom have real experience reguarding the issue.

Wayne Sanders

Thanks for the link. I'll check that out.
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Everything I know about life I learned from Nintendo!!!

That is a very good article. Thank you, Derek

I was trying to find the info on pairs housed together in Bob Applegate's book, but it was 2:00 a.m. and I just coudn't get it together, oh well. I know it was in there somewhere. Bob Macken, a friend of mine that's a biologist in Washington State has done the same for decades with no problems. Bob Macken has a few photo's on the Kingsnake.com Alterna page that were taken before most of us knew how to spell herpetology. The only time I've heard of problems is when the two snakes are fed together and they both go for the same mouse, and you know the rest of the story. Take care,
Phil Patton

Cannibalism is not that common in milksnakes, despite the fact that they're in the same genus as kingsnakes. In the current issue of "Reptiles" magazine (March 2006), Bob Applegate states "I keep adult kingsnakes together year-round, though they are separated for feeding..." Applegate has worked with reptiles for over 50 years and has bred colubrids for at least 20.

Does this mean keeping multiple snakes togather is the right thing to do?

Maybe or maybe not.

Snakes are solitary by nature. Keeping them together will stress them to some degree. Also, you need to consider illness - if one snakes gets sick, chances are its cagemates will suffer the same fate. And although unlikely, cannibalism is still a possibility.

Tim

Third Eye

Keeping them separate for health reasons, better monitoring of each snake and to reduce stress is a good idea.

Keeping them separate to avoid cannibalism is largely based on maybe a few (very few) incidents out of hundreds of opportunities of these snakes having access to one another in captivity where they didn't eat one another.

Do a poll here and ask how many people have cohabitated milksnakes and how many of those same people have had one snake eat another. I'm curious myself. I bet the numbers of eaters is very low vs the number that didn't. I would bet less than 1%.

Here's my input: 0 out of 20