Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[garysumpter]

Hi all,

I have a dilemma that I would like to put to you guys as I know you always try to help.

My current snake collection is 2 royals (M/F), 2 anery corns (M/F), 2 Miami corns (M/F) and one Amel Corn (?)

I wish to expend my corn collection with various other morphs as I have a real passion for corns.

My bedroom is fitted with cutom made beech vivariums (triple corner stack, normall triple stack, 6foot arboreal and a few others) which looks awesome.

The 2 pythons are housed together and the corns are housed together. The Royals are about a year old, 4 of the corns are yearlings and one is a few months old (he/she is in the same vavarium as the others, but in a faunarium for obvious size related issues).

NOW, I have been reading all day about keeping corns together and royals togather and there is mixed arguements. My lot are all great, they all shed, never miss a feed etc etc. However I can see there being problems as they get older.

Especially as I am looking to buy some more morphs.

So it SEEMS that the best thing for me to do is to house all my cirns separately, do you guys agree?

I have a BIG corner vivarium that I wanted to house all my corns in as a large communal viv that would look AWESOME, however the best interests of the snakes come first of course.

I would much rather have my snakes on display, so I am trying to work out my options. Either a stack of small vivariums with one corn per vivarium, or some sort of rack system.

Do you guys have any thoughts on this?

Obviously a stack would look nicer, is easier to light, but costs more.

A rack is more compact, but the snakes arent on display.

I am thinking long term, obviously the snakes need to be split when breeding, so if they are housed separately, then introduced for breeding, then returned home, it all makes sense.

I would need to house the corns, the 2 royals, plus any other corn morphs i buy.

Very open, hopring for your ideas, suggestions and photos!

Many Thanks

Gary
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[Dan]

Yes you can house them together, thousands do it with no problems. Just use some common sense (care at feeding time etc etc).
Oh and corns don't need to be split to breed I know several people that keep colonies together in one large viv, one of these people had up to 30 in one viv at one point (mixed sexes) with no problems and they shagged all day long when it came to the season.

Me, i'd go for a nice big viv. They are corn snakes so make the viv something reminiscent of a farmyard. Could be fun to look at with a bit of work.
Racks? whats the point in having the snakes again?
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[peaches]

With my corns I do house 3 females together but all the rest are seperate, one drawback of housing a mixed sex viv will be the breeding, if you have a selection of different morphs but you want to breed for a certain one - you are not going to know who's been with who, so may not get the outcome you were after.

[garysumpter]

Thanks ever so much for the replies.

Definately NOT what I expected, every other post I have read says DONT house together !!

To be honest, I wouldnt be to fussed about trying to breed a certain morph, would spoil the surprise of seeing what hatches !!!

Would it be ok to keep multiple males in a large viv? At the moment I have 2 males and 2 females together with no problems!

I need to ascertain all the potential issues as I really would LOVE to house them in a large communal viv.

Of course I feed them all separately, out of the viv, my favourite time of the week

Gary
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[peaches]

[Dan]

Peaches, it is pretty much a standard for corn snake displays, i'd guess because it works so well?

Gary, there's no point telling you that things can't be done, most things can be it just takes common sense and an open-ness to new ideas/methods. Plus there aren't many kids with 6 months herp experience and the ability to type 1.6billion wpm on here to guide you, which is a bonus IMO.

I have found that when keeping males together they generally don't care too much until females get involved. I would suspect that aslong as each male has a hide spot and a minimum of one girl to himself they will be fine.

Feeding could be a bit of an issue. I have found that when housing multiple animals i had MORE problems when i fed outside the vivs. Sounds daft i know but bare with me...... So you take them all out and feed them, as one finishes you put it back, then another finishes so you put that one back. It is here the problems can arise. The one that finished first now is settled food wise and alert looking for more in an empty viv, then all of a sudden it will spot something else moving in its viv that smells of food. This cycle will of course continue on for each animal you have in there until the final animal has to be put it. If at ANY point during that process one of the animals strikes then all hell is VERY likely to break out. While slow steady movement attracts attention the rapid movements created by striking (and receiving a strike) are far far far more likely to elicit a feeding response which then starts of a cycle until you have everyone striking at each other.
My solution was/is to only ever put cage mates back into the viv at the same time. Doing it this way i haven't had any problems (touch wood!!)

This was only meant to be a 2 min post
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TFA

The future is bright, the future is a net like pattern.................

I'm NOT an expert, so if you don't want to know my opinion don't ask!!

[mark]

vivs all day long im not a rack fan
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[garysumpter]

Thanks a LOT for the replies, they have been VERY VERY useful to me.

All advice taken on board, especially about feeding time

Large communal vivarium it is

Gary
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[andyj]

I dont think keeping snakes together is bad but its worth bearing in mind there are risks involved. I seem to remember someone who has offered advice on this thread saying if you cant afford to house snakes properly then dont buy anymore!The safest way is to keep them seperate. People have kept snakes together with no problems but there are some who have had snakes eating each other etc. Imagine if you had a regurged mouse in the viv. Which snake is ill? Or what if you notice blood in the stools? Maybe its not a problem worth thinking about I have only kept snakes for a couple of years so I maybe aren't competent to offer advice in some peoples eyes

[Peter Parrot]

There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods/systems. For ease of care and efficiency I myself prefer to keep them seperately. Few snakes in the wild spend a great deal of time together other than for breeding purposes or communal hibernating.

As a display, a group of corns can look great. For keeping tabs on what`s going on, as Andy is indicating in his post, one snake per viv is the better option.
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