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Behavior General topics or questions concerning the way your cornsnake may be acting.

Housing snakes together - my very, very long opinion
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Old 11-15-2008, 06:07 AM   #201
bitsy
Firstly, this thread is over three years old, but always worth revisiting the topic.

Secondly, I think newcomers to it might want to read Kathy's original post on page one of the thread. It contains some interesting food for thought which might inform any new posts.
 
Old 11-23-2008, 09:09 PM   #202
dakota11
Hi, I am fairly new to corns and appreciate all I have learned on this group. I have read and enjoyed your book Kathy. Prior to me getting the two snakes I currently have they were housed together in a very small critter carrier also very small and had issues with eating. In the time that I have had them they have doubled in size and are doing well. I do house them together in a large enclosure but always feed separately I have seriously considered separating them but due to the following I haven't done so. Now I know folks say that when corns sleep together its due to competition for housing and warmth/dominance. So I understand that may be why mine spend time together in one hide instead of using one of the other 4 hides. Now the thing that does puzzle me is that when I feed and return one to the viv she does not stop moving around looking as if trying to escape (looking for the other one, I know that sounds ridiculous) but seriously even if I take one out at non feeding time the other gets very active the larger of the two seems to have more of this behavior.
anyways my thoughts are
She wants to make sure there isnt a mouse she is missing out on
or is it at all possible that they may be attached?
or am I just use to dogs and horses lol ok seriously Cathy and or others here could you give me some insite to this and the real reason for this behavior
 
Old 11-23-2008, 11:20 PM   #203
kathylove
Of course, nobody can really know what goes on in those little snakey brains, lol! But my best guess after many years of caring for, and observing them, is that they probably can't form emotional attachments to people or animals (at least in the same way we think of emotions). However, I have seen evidence that they can recognize people or particular animals that have either been good to them (such as feeding) or that have caused distress to them (teasing, scaring, making fast, scary movements, etc). I also believe that they are very much creatures of habit, and tend to like things to stay the way they are. Any change is somewhat stressful, even if it is a change for the better. So it does not really surprise me if a snake has gotten used to a cage mate, even if it was stressful at the beginning, and sometimes even stressful now. Heck, look how many PEOPLE stay in horrible, stressful marriages, in part just because change would be so difficult and stressful, and we fear the unknown. And we are SUPPOSED to be smart enough to figure such things out, haha!

My feeling is that if two snakes have been together for a long time, the stress level has probably gone down a lot since the introduction, since they had to find ways to deal with each other and desensitize themselves to the constant and unnaturally close proximity. They most likely will do ok together at that point, although if one of them ever gets stressed due to illness or some other reason, the additional stress of a cage mate may again rear its ugly head. Separating now will cause some stress for a while, just as adjusting to a new home causes stress when I ship out a new pet. But I don't feel there will be the emotional pain of missing a good buddy, just the temporary stress of a change from the old, known situation. But as I said, it is just my opinion - I am not a telepathic "snake whisperer", lol!
 

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