Can BRB be housed together

[bgfaith]

i know some people dont agree with housing them together as you dont know who has eaten what but i always feed my snakes out of their vivs so i will be monitoring there eating. But are BRB known for canabalising or anything like that is my main worry.

[akuma 天]

Originally Posted by bgfaith

i know some people dont agree with housing them together as you dont know who has eaten what but i always feed my snakes out of their vivs so i will be monitoring there eating. But are BRB known for canabalising or anything like that is my main worry.

I've never heard or read about it, and I dont think its common, but I'm sure someone can dig up a picture from the internet somewhere, but the baisc answer is no, they dont not often each other.

[brick]

i keep all my brb's separate except for when breeding. Will you have any problems if they are together, probably not, is it advisable, probably not.

A pair of my adult females, who were bought as adults, came from a guy that kept them together and he had no problems. I also know a guy in the states who houses 3 adult females and an adult male in an enclosure together and has no problems, that being said, he also has a massive size terrarium so they each have there separate space.

I few things to look for, if you decide to house together though, is making sure one does not have a big dominance over the other. ie picking the only heat spot, etc etc etc. Also if either stopped eating, i would start to keep apart. They may be some dominance, with one over the other that you cant see, but stresses out one of the snakes.

If one gets mites, the other gets mites etc etc.

But remember they are your snakes, and as long as you can give them all they need, enough hides, the proper heat gradient, fresh water, and a bigger cage than you would for just one snake. Its really what you feel comfortable with. Im sure you will be able to tell if it is working for the snakes or not after a while. You just have to be ready to separate them, if the need arises.

And definitely no feeding in the cage if they are two of them. When i first started with snakes, i had a few boas in a cage together, they were ok, but a few times, i had to slice a mouse in half, as two decided for the same meal. Live and learn i guess...

[Crownan]

Brick has said it all.

I had a very close call when I was feeding 2 that were intogether for breeding, they were at opposite ends, both had a rat each so I thought it was ok. 5 mins with my back turned and the male had swallowed his and was less than an inch away from going for the rat sticking out the females mouth.

We live and learn. BRBs will happily cohabit (Read Happily as 'seem to tolerate each other) but best practice would dictate its always better to house seperately in general

[bgfaith]

well as i said in the beginning feeding wont be a problem as i dont feed my snakes in their vivs but they are only young at the moment but was gonna but them in a 40 x 40 x 20 inch viv with different hights and with hides would that be okay?

[sharpstrain]

The answer is that it will probably be ok, but it is not without some risk and only you can decide if you are prepared to take that risk

[Bernie]

Some very sensible answers and it will always be your judgement call. I on the other hand, do house my BRB's together, I do feed separately and then return to the viv, so that the situation described above will not occur. It is extremely rare for an adult boa to consume a cagemate and in any circumstance where this may have happened, I'd bet good money a food item was involved.

Yes, illness can be more easily transmitted between co-habitants etc, but for this to be an issue its important for any collection to understand how they arise. Most commonly they are either contagious, introduced from another collection/animal which would be a hygiene/quarantine issue, then there are genetic/pre-disposed illnesses (e.g cancers, not a great deal you can do about that one and they cannot be spread to cagemates) or an illness resulting from poor husbandry. This last one is totally avoidable and plenty of research will help.

As for mites, once they're in, they're bloody difficult to get rid of and will most likely shift from one snake to the next without the help of cohabitation!! They can travel some distance and keeping snakes in separate vivs is not guaranteed to prevent them spreading. These are just some things to think about when you consider co-habitation. The other anti-cohabitation consideration is regurge and droppings. Regurge is easy - whoever has no food bump, did it! Faeces can be a bit trickier, but I can usually tell from the shape of my animal's abdomen or the area around the cloaca, whether they are due to defecate or just have. But if any faeces were irregular, it would be worthwhile having both animal's treated if illness arose. I hope this all helps!