Roomates?

[squatncough]

I'm new to the forum, and would like to take the chance to tell you guys what a great place you have here. I'm curently designing a new cage for my coloumbian Boa, and I was wondering how they do with roomates. Multiple boas (it's a fairly large cage)?, turtles?, I'ver herd they eat iguanas?

[ls1grrrl]

I recommend not housing multiple boas in the same enclosure, let alone housing multiple species together. Some people do it and say they have no problems, but here are my reasons for NOT doing it:

1) You can never be certain about which snake used the bathroom. Urates and feces (or lack thereof) can be your first and sometimes only sign of a health propblem, so you want to know which snake is doing its business. Some people will say that you will know when you fed a specific snake so you should know when it will poop. Thats just a shot in the dark - not all snakes poop on a regular schedule and you WILL be just guessing (even if its an "educated guess") as to which animal's mess you're cleaning up.

2) Illnesses and parasites are much more easily transmitted from one animal to another when they're housed together.

3) Snakes are not social and gain nothing from being housed together. In fact, it will be stressful for them because they will always be competing for hides and space in general. (Stress weakens the immune system and leaves the animal more open to illness.)

4) Your cage size will increase exponentially for each animal housed in it if you're planning on doing things right. The reason for this is that the animals will each need to have enough space in EACH thermal zone so that they can properly thermo-regulate.

Again, there are always people who will disagree and/or who have successfully housed snakes together. This is just my opinion based on the facts and observations I've made through my own experiences and those of other keepers.

Heather

[ReneeB]

I personally keep my 1.1 cornsnakes together and 1.1 southern pinesnakes together in two tanks, I also keep 1.4 Leopard geckos together in a tank and 1.1 white line geckos in a tank.

But then those are my breeding pairs/groups so it's a little different.

My kenyans are kept seperately because my lil guy would get eaten if he lived with his girl, as there is a HUGE size difference because he's 02 and she's 01.

After Jan 1st they are all being moved into their own seperate rubbermaids in my rack. [provided I can figure out how to heat the stupid thing]

I've had no problems keeping any of my animals together I've kept corns, bps, leos, pines, whitelines in groups or pair.

I personally think it should be a personaly choice as to what you want to do. But I do NOT recommend multi species in the same tanks. Nor to I recommend mutli of the same species, it's just my personally choice.

Sorry if this isn't much help.

[Lisa]

Snakes with other species would be bad. Housing your iguana and turtles together shouldn't be bad as long as you can accodomate both their needs (you often see turtles and crocs together in zoos because the turtles are too big for the crocs to eat) but don't put snakes in that mix too. housing the same species of snake together shouldn't be a problem, specially if you have enough hides and they don't have to compete for food by feeding them out of the cage.

[BILLP]

I think that it is not a very good Idea, espeacially to start with. After you are sure that both do not have deasises then if they are the same species I don't think it would hurt if there are plenty of hiding spots and room. I volenteer at a zoo and we house different species together alot but it is more of the publics view instead of the animals. most of the time it is an aborial species and a ground species (tree pythons and turtles.)

[Tim_Cranwill]

A story...
When I was in junior high, my science teacher let me and my buddy keep our herps in his class room. We had a nice big tank with 7 garters and a 20 gal with 2 fist sized turtles and a large leopard frog (not sure if they are actually called that...). Anyway, we came to school one day to find nothing but some bones of the frog:( and that was after a seemingly peaceful co-existence.

I would say that I would not keep anything together if I could help it, but that's just me.:)

[Linds]

Heather made an excellent post. I agree with everything that she said and would also like to add that each species has its own host specific bacteria, which while it lives fine in that animal, can make other animals quite ill. Sure many different species thrive together in the wild, but in captivity it is nearly impossible to simulate the conditions and space involved. IMHO its best to house them all separately.....