Hi, I’m new to the community and have never posted a question before, so forgive me if this is in the wrong forum or area(?). I’ve googled this question many times over and have not found anything definitive and realized that I could just ask the experts. I’m making a cage stand for my Burmese female and male and want to future proof it when it comes to the size. The question is, what is the absolute minimum cage size I could get away with for an adult female and an adult male in length and width. I don’t power feed and won’t have them grow extremely large. I keep hearing cage sizes ranging from 6’-10’. I don’t have that much space so only want the minimum. I want to get out the way that I am not a novice and have had many retics in the past but not Burms. Thank you!
So, I haven’t kept Burmese pythons and the Retics I keep are dwarfs… If someone who has worked more extensively with burms has advice then they may be more accurate.
The minimum recommended size is generally used for keepers that are actively breeding and for space concerns because of the number of animals they’re keeping. As a hobbyist you should strive to do better, so consider the larger size to provide enrichment and space to really move around.
A single cage for 2 burms to cohabitate would need to be massive. The minimum cage sizes are generally fine for breeders keeping a single animal in that 6-10’ long. The minimum cage should be at least another 3-5’ long and that’s not even getting to the width and height. A smaller cage and temporary cohabbing for breeding is entirely different than a year round necessity.
With a breeding pair I would consider at least double the recommendation. Do you have an extra bedroom or office you can convert? Lol. The reason for having such a massive space for cohabbing is to reduce the stress by providing multiple basking spots, cool spots and hides.
Even without power feeding, genetics can still dictate that you will end up with a couple of good sized snakes it just may take a bit longer to reach that size and overall the snakes won’t be as fatty. But on the topic of feeding… That is also another issue. Will you want to constantly wrestle one of them out of that cage for feeding? Or will you always have someone on hand to help distract the other? If one outgrows the other too quickly cannibalism can also be a concern.
Then there’s the stress of keeping a 1.1 pair together. Especially when the male may hit maturity first and harass the female. Or risk eggbinding in a stressed female that bred too early.
Are you asking about keeping them together? If that is what you are asking, then you would need at LEAST 12 foot by 6 foot by 4 foot for an ‘average’ sized pair (8 foot male, 12 foot female); larger for a pair that is bigger. The enclosure would also have to be able to have a sturdy divider put up in the middle if needed in case something were to happen.
For a single male (7-9 feet), I wouldn’t go any smaller than 8x3x3 ft.
For a single female or a larger male (9-12 feet) an 8x4x4 foot enclosure is the smallest I would do.
For a 12-14 foot female a 10x4x4 enclosure is the smallest and for a 14-16 foot snake a 12x4x4 is the smallest
Hi, thank you for the replies. For some reason I wasn’t alerted to them and didn’t think anyone had done so. I would only keep my male and female together for breeding purposes and was referring to each individual animal’s cage size separately.
Thank you for this. I will definitely take these sizes into consideration.
Thank you. I would never cohabit my males and females and would only do so during breeding season, but will definitely take this advice in consideration.