It is my concern when you levied a infraction against me for far less simply because you disagree with me.
And while we're airing everything out, let's examine that statement.
In your original thread,
Cannibal Corn???, I didn't even enter into the discussion until post 94, in which I linked a very good article on cohabitation, not written by me, which outlined some common arguments against cohabitation. This article also presented graphic visual evidence that snakes can and do eat cagemates.
In response to a comment that the thread was growing tiresome, I responded:
I'm sure we can drag it out for a few hundred more posts all saying the same thing, though.
Your snakes might die if you cohab ∞
I don't care, they might not ∞
Again, just stating what I believe to be a factual distillation of the eventual outcome of all cohabitation threads.
In post 119 I asked people in general to stop calling you names:
Please stop calling the OP names, no matter how thinly-veiled.
In post 126 I explained to you that Rich, the forum owner, would rather we work things out instead of locking threads:
No, the only posts deleted here are spam, sorry. It would also take an act of God (aka Rich Z) to lock a thread. We are encouraged to work things out while maintaining productive discussion.
And finally, in post 133, when you bemoaned the fact that no one seemed to agree with you, I pointed out the simple fact:
See, we _can't_ guarantee cohabbing is safe. The only way to guarantee your snakes are safe from the multitude of bad things that _could_ befall them while cohabbed (and _do_ happen, to people we know, not anonymous people on the Internet) is to keep them separately. End of story. Either your pleasure from watching them interact with each other is worth more to you than their lives, or it is not. But once the snakes die, you can't take it back.
I don't understand why anyone would take the chance. It seems quite selfish.
Anything you have to add to that is just blah blah blah blah I don't care if my snakes die.
We've offered proof that it can happen; you don't care.
I'm just stating the facts, Chris. There IS NO guarantee that cohabitation is safe. There are numerous dangers that can befall two or more snakes simply from the act of housing them together. The only way you can absolutely protect them from any of the outlined sources of injury or death is to keep them separately.
It's not _picking on you_, it's not _attacking you_, it's trying to demonstrate to you that there are two camps: people who only put their snakes together for a short amount of time for breeding purposes, and people who routinely house their snakes in groups. In the latter camp you have newbies, who perhaps have not been made aware of the potential, and not unlikely, dangers of keeping snakes together. And there are snake-keepers, with years of experience, who provide elaborate, natural, spacious enclosures, who at least _know_ the risks are out there, and make an informed decision. That is not to say those snakes can't or won't ever be stressed or injured or killed by a cagemate.
We, the forum in general, for the most part, have a hard time understanding why when, having been presented with personal anecdotal evidence, you would wish to impose this risk upon your beloved pets. But probably most of us don't really care what your eventual decision is; we just want you to make an informed decision.
