Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone think its possible to house a large group of tokays together with several males without problems? 3 or 4 males with 7-10 females ... I heard its posible but im not so sure.

No. You wont be able to house males together unless you give them like a literal room. . . something around 20feet cube. Males are very very territorial and will not tolerate another male even close to them or their girl. If you house males together your just going to be looking for trouble and dead animals. The only way is like I said give them a huge room. . like the size of a big bedroom with lots and lots of plants and trees and branches. Thats about the only way to do it and you still might have problems. Best bet is to just have a few cages with either a pair or a male and two female trio. Just dont keep males together.

Thanks for your reply!!

Thats what I thought, I was looking at a group 3.7, I was told there all housed in 5ft x 3ft x 2ft enclosure with no problems, I thought that seemed a little to good to be true.

The only way they are living together like that is either with lots of fighting. Or they are fresh imports and are to stressed and freaked out to care. Best of luck. . . CB is the way to go though really. Good luck either way.

Blake

Those most likely did not fight, because way too many individuals were cramped together in a relatively small tank. Probaly even sparsely furnished....The resulting crowding effect often prevents aggression. But its a stressful situation and nothing to be recommended.

Ingo

Just like Blake said..

You can initially start with a group of young males or imports and house them together. As they grow, become healty or mature they will set up territories and the dominant male will eventually bully or kill the other male. Sometimes, the other male will just weaken and die as it tries to stay away from the resident MONSTER!!!!

Not a good idea....In fact, having too many girls is often not so great either. I find my best groups are pairs. I have groups with several girls and I seem to have some random egg eating and dominant girls that produce and weaker females that don't do much. i then have seperated the weaker female set her up with a male and got her to be productive. Takes lots of cages to optimize this effort, not crowding them!

Kevin

>>No. You wont be able to house males together unless you give them like a literal room. . . something around 20feet cube. Males are very very territorial and will not tolerate another male even close to them or their girl. If you house males together your just going to be looking for trouble and dead animals. The only way is like I said give them a huge room. . like the size of a big bedroom with lots and lots of plants and trees and branches. Thats about the only way to do it and you still might have problems. Best bet is to just have a few cages with either a pair or a male and two female trio. Just dont keep males together.
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Typicaly that is impossible, even in large tanks. Males will fight each other till oe is dead.
But there are -impredictable exceptions.
15 years ago I aquired a tokay "pair", which turned out to be two males. These anaimals lived very peacefully together. IAfter quarantine, I transferred them to a 700g tank and aded two females.
Both sired clutches and took care of eggs and babies, but both males always stayed very close together. They were always within sight of each other and did not care much about the females, except for mating. One of the males is still alive, the second died a few years ago. Upon its death, the other male displyed the same behaviour tokays show after loss of a bonden mate. The left over male called endlessly days and night for weeks.
I tried to replace the dead male by one of his sons-but that was immediately attacked by the other male.
So this "befriended" males were really unique.

Ingo

They are just like crocodiles!