Two Cornsnakes Together

[Tenacious_Ash]

hello, seeing as though this is my second post, i will introduce myself. My name is Ashleigh, and i live in Darlington, England.

The first time i encountered a Corn Snake was at my friend David's House. He had just bought one from our nearest reptile shop.. Coast To Coast (http://www.coasttocoast.co.uk). It was his first snake, so as expected he was very excited about the whole thing. I having a slight fear of snakes, became instantly attached to this snake. I loved the way it looked, felt, moved and especially eat! Then another of my friends bought a Cornsnake. This just backed up my new feelings for cornsnakes, i definetly wanted to start keeping them! But as i am saving up to get all the stuff to keep it happy, i started thinking of having two Cornsnakes, but in the same enclosure. What i want to know is, will there be any consequences, what behavioural changes will occur, has anyone else done this, and when should i do this in the snakes life if at all?

THANKS

[Jimmy C.]

Hey Tenacious,
Welcome to the forum!! The best way to learn about Corns is to get a book. Kathy loves Corn Snake manual is the favourite on this forum. Also read as much of the past posts as possible.
Personally I dont have an issue with houseing two snakes together. There are things to be aware of.
If they are a true pair, as they get older they may mate before she is old enough, and thats not good. Breeding a female thats too young can cause her to become egg bound when she is ready to lay her eggs.
The other thing is if one of the snakes gets sick the other will get sick, or if one vomits it would be hard to guess which one it was.
I hope that this helps,
Jimmy C.

[SnakesRus007]

ive always wanted to keep to corns together but i have a bay amel and adult reular now so i dont want any canibolism with my corns to happen so on saturday im goin to buy a baby to keep both the babies together ... .. i cant wait

[Tenacious_Ash]

that sounds great! KEEP ME POSTED! and get some pics up if you can, that would be brilliant!

[bmm]

Keeping snakes together is not good IMHO

I never keep any of my snakes together for siome very simple reasons...

1. The chance of cannabalisim ALWAYS esists, ESPECIALLY with babies! They can and have eaten each other.

2. If one snake regurgs his meal, you will not know which one did it.

3. If one snake has bad feces, or is ill you a. wont know which one is sick and B. If one gets sick both will likely be ill.

I cannot afford to lose any animals, but I can afford a ten dollar rubbermaid tub so each snake has the proper housing of its own.

bmm

[Tenacious_Ash]

thanks for your advice

all opinions are welcome in my eyes! :)

[Neil]

I'd just like to say that you are VERY lucky to have Coast To Coast as your local reptile shop; it has a great reputation and, if I lived up Durham way, I'd be spending most of my time in there.
My advise would be for you to go back to the shop and ask THEM about housing corns together as they have successfully been keeping and breeding all sorts of reptiles for many years.
I myself have a couple of comments to make on the subject and, before you decide to house two corns together you should think about the following:

-You won't be able to keep a male and a female together as the female may become pregnant too young and have serious problems. Also, I wouldn't trust two males alone with each other either; I tried housing males together once and they WEREN'T happy about it!!
-You will need to feed the two snakes at different times in the week so you can monitor regurgitation and the like.
-A small possibility of cannibalism exists at all times, especially with hatchlings or when you are housing a large snake with a hatchling (which should never be done).
-Infections can easily be spread between the two.
-You would have to think about having two hides at each side of the viv as snakes are solitary animals and like to curl up and be on their own. This would take up a lot of space.

Have a think about the above and see how you feel. Personally, I have no problem with housing two females together but you have to be extra careful.

Neil

[Iris]

Yup, everything they said

And if you feel you MUST keep multiple snakes together, don't forget to quarantine the new arrival(s).

[Tenacious_Ash]

well you have persuaded me not too, i can see why now alot of breeders won't put snakes together now.

the idea was a nice one, but i would dread one of my pets to be divoured by the other!!

thanks for all the opinions though, it was good to hear everyone elses thoughts.

but then how do you breed Corns? I don't understand how you would get them together? :confused:

[bmm]

It's the babies that eat each other if any really, the adults are able to breed because when you place them together at the correct time of year, they are both interested in mating. Often the male is ONLY interested in mating, and goes off food for a short period of time anyways.

Corns *can* live together. Babies *can* live together, but the chances of illness to your entire stock that is living together, cannabilisim, other injury, stress, etc is too high for most breeders and keepers to risk it.

bmm
IMHO

[Tenacious_Ash]

what time of year do they become sexually active? sorry to be a bother!

[Iris]

spring->early summer usually. In the wild this is when they come out of hibernation and as the weather becomes warmer and the days become longer, they look for mates. At least I think that's what it is.

do you have The Corn Snake Manual by Bill and Kathy Love? It has tons of great info on corn snakes on just about every topic you can imagine. Especially breeding. You can order it through Amazon.com (what I did before I found out about Kathy Love's site) or at Kathy's website www.corn-utopia.com.

[Tenacious_Ash]

thanks. when i get my corn, i will buy one from Coast to Coast.

thank you for the url also.

[clumsly]

i have 3 in same cage and theres not problem expect one of the males ty to mate but i just seprate and hestopes moslt. if you do put 2 in same cage try and get to females the will work the best. make sure you feed seprate and have lot of hides so they feel happy. talk to me if you have mopre questions

[bmm]

Clumsy its irresponsible for you to base your opinions on ONE try and housing together, not to mention you now have a possible SERIOUS problem with a 20 inch female who could be gravid.

You don't even mention the risks which I have outlined above, and you have asked crazy questions all over this forum and now you are telling someone to ask YOU for advice? No offense dude but when you give advice you could be dealing with someones pets life.

bmm

[clumsly]

yo bmm i rather keep my snakes in a big cage instead of housing them in a rubbermaid container i mean that so mean so keep them inthere thats a great life. and none of my snakes have any of the problems oyu have listed above.

[Darin Chappell]

I'm sorry clumsly, but you're just wrong on this. There ARE very real concerns about housing corns together in any sized enclosure, and you have ignored some of them.

In so doing, it may well be that your 20" female is gravid. Are you prepared for the health difficulties hse may have? Are you prepared for the fact that she will now need more food? Do you realize that she, being so small, could very easily get eggbound and die? Assuming she does make it through, are you prepared to care for the eggs she produces? If you were to incubate them, what would you do with those little lives in your charge?

Or how about these issues: Do you know that your other male may very well be stressed out by having a more dominant male in his enclosure? Do you know that if one of your snakes were to be infected with a communicable illness, that all three of your pets would also be facing the same problems? Do you know that stress is one of the most common reasons for snakes to go off their feed, even to the point of death? Did you know that small snakes DO cannibalize one another? It's rare on a scale of percentage, but it happens more often than you would believe.

As to your assertions about housing corns in smaller containers (rubbermaids, tupperware, etc), from what experience or research do you draw your conclusion? I find it interesting that you, having asked so many newbie questions over the period of a day or two, are now in a position to determine what is best for your cornsnake, even though others with years of real experience say otherwise! The reality of it is that if a snake has food, water, warmth, shelter (a hide), and seasonal mating, there is precious little else it will seek. You can provide all that to a snake in very small dimensions. The idea of a snake being more or less happy about its container is a bit of a case of anthropomorphism of the snakes, I'm afraid. I doubt they care anywhere nearly as much as their owners do.

In closing, clumsly, welcome to the site! It's always good to see new faces on the forums, and it is good to know that younger people are getting into the hobby of herp keeping. However, you might find it helpful to ask more questions, get more experience, and listen to more experienced herpers for a while before you start handing out free advice on the net.

Just a thought . . .

[CAV]

clumsly,

Darin and bmm are giving you very good feedback based on their combined experience. I agree with them completely. As a suggestion, you should re-read their posts until it sinks in good.


The horse has officially been led to the ol' watering hole........

Will it drink???;)

[Alicia]

Very well said Darin:)

I hope for the sake of the animals that yours and BMMs advice is taken!!

[crissiecross742]

I hope the female will be okay, and I'm also a young herper... 14. I've been around corns since I was five though and have read a lot on genetics, I'm no expert though, but I would like to agree with the above statements. I hope you read these and stop acting like a jerk, having three cornsnakes( or more) does not make you a herpatologist. Please be careful with your snakes... for their sake and research before you give advice on anything, please. re3member to smile above all else and be happy being you.:rolleyes:

[Chigy]

damm i hate to say it but u guyz may be right...but right now i keep 2 corns together and they do just fine i keep both in god health they never got agressive towards each other. if anythin goes worng frist signs im seperating them because i luuv my corns to much to see anythign happen to them....they are 2 1/2 feet and they luv sleeping together...well thats what i got to say

[CAV]

Sometimes the problems aren't visible. The micro-critters that can harm your snakes can be tramsitted without you noticing. Check this out if you have any doubts:

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6737

Had I decided to house snakes together, this could have been much worse. Just a thought.

[Canadain Eh?]

If you don't wan't babies seperate them or have two of the same sex.

[Missy]

i wouldnt exactly say of the same sex canadian eh, two males through the breeding season, whether theres a female about or not, a possibility that they will fight, sometimes to the extent of the bigger male actually killing the smaller male.

[cornman1979]

I agree with missy, 2 males could fight for domancy. 1 male for upto 3 females throughout the breeding seesion would be better.

[Cornfan]

Hullo Ashleigh.... are you the same Asheligh from the NERG site? Good to see you on here :)

[darkpbstar]

I hate how everyoen sais how bad it is to house them together, when so many people have been doing so on this very site for over 13 years. but we all have our own opinions.

[Missy]

for those of you who think housing 2 or more together is fine, thats fine with me, like a few peeps have already said everyones entitled to their own opinion.

all im saying is, no matter how long they have lived together, no matter how well you think they know each other, no matter how much you think they like each other, no matter if you never come across a problem for 20 years, it CAN still happen, we are not saying it will for sure, were just saying that it can, my motto is 'it only takes a second for everything to change'.

its like when your walking to the shops, just say, you have a great job, loving partner, loving family and think the world is your oyster, then bam! you get kocked down by a vehicle, ok this is a depressing example, but its true.
just my thoughts.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

Is it just me...Or is this question asked a lot lately? It seems that we need to make a note "USE THE SEARCH ENGINE" on the home page...

[brownie55]

Why did this get kicked back up to the top, the thread had been inactive for over a year.

[TripleMoonsExotic]

WOW. didn't even notice that...............

[stuart]

im not gonna say much because its probably already been said, ill just post this picture for you, and maybe this will make your mind up on housing them together, or not ;)
(btw, this is not my picture, i found it on the internet, credits to clint boyer)