On Ball Python Cohabitation

@eaglereptiles

100% uneventful, except for me bombing my first pass at a tank vivarium with root rot :slight_smile: - if there was an incident with the snakes I’d report since I wouldn’t want people to follow my lead.

All three pairings are still together, and I’m convinced enough that the cohabitation is positively constructive that I’ve stopped giving it much thought. I have no qualms continuing this practice with a modest increase in attention so long as the environment has enough space and the girls are similarly sized (or maybe more accurately, that the smallest is relatively large enough to hold her own…Popcorn is like 1/6 the size of her companions and has no issues).

All girls continue to overwhelmingly choose contact. Very rare to see them apart - typically one will separate a bit to a new location during shed, but even that doesn’t imply social isolation…I’ve noticed the others ‘joining’ for shorter periods (up to a few hours at a time). I’ve seen NERD Kevin talking about contact as a form of communication in his videos, and I overwhelmingly corroborate this belief.

The three in the 55g tank continue to do well, and I think I see some modest differentiation in relationships - Popcorn tends to follow Solana in the event that Solana and Pyra are in separate spots.

The BEL twins are…weird. Even the breeder thought the clutch had strangely calm/social behaviors from birth. They’re so curious and chill that they come to the front of the opened rack and crawl into my hands. If I pick up one, the other always crawls forward and watches. Best zero-stress snakes ever.

Freckles and Terra worked out as expected. Within a week Freckles was significantly less wiley, although she did take some handling before completely relaxing with human contact. She stopped nipping after the pairing, though. I think this is really key…putting a defensive snake with a calm one made her immediately less, not more, defensive.

In general, no signs of elevated stress - all are eating and shedding and pooping like champs.

Some more pics.

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