Well, since no one else has responded to you, I'll take a stab at it - even though what I have to offer is different than what a lot of other people would say. I house my 1.2 JCPs together. I also house my JCPxDiamond pair together. And my pair of Moluccans. And my pair of White Lippeds. These are all large, established adults that I have had for several years and are all what I would consider, quite tame. In my experience, housing animals together is a bit of an art, and it requires that you pay attention to them and that they are well established and secure. It also means more of your time on feeding day, I feed all of my communally housed animals in individual large storage bins.

Cage design and individual temperament is very important when housing animals together. As much as snakes will never like you, they also should never really hate you. In my opinion, nervous, defensive, snakes that don't hesitate to bite you are just that - nervous and defensive - and are not good candidates for group housing. Snakes are very scent based, before housing any of my animals together, they were in cages either next to or on top of each other so they could get used to each other gradually as opposed to a more sudden introduction. Group cages need to be pretty large, with enough room for movement and individual shelters of all the occupants without them always being on top of each other. For instance, my JCPs are in a 5'x2'x4'tall cage.

In your case, what I would consider is housing the animals separately initially - especially because the female is new to you - mites and worse do happen, and these problems are not trivial to deal with. Let your female get settled in for a while, several feedings at least then see how she deals with feeding when she's put in a plastic storage box. I have never, and have no plans to ever, feed multiple animals in the same cage. Too scary for me. And try the same with your male. I would watch the size difference. Eventually the female will catch up with the male, but you'll have to pay attention to ensure that the small female is not being intimidated by the large male. I would probably wait until they were more comparably sized.

Hope this helps a little.



-Rolf

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