housing

is it okay to introduce another female to my current females enclosure after a three or four month quarantine as a cagemate or do cagemates have to be memebers of the opposite sex?

Personally I would not house any two Balls together on a regular basis or as permanent "cagemates". Be it male/female or female/female.

Agreed with sammy here. You should house two animals in two seperate enclosures. Since snakes can be cannibalistic, and they can also pass diseases quicker this way, even if an animal can appear healthy, stress can cause an animal to become sick.

When they "share/cuddle" they are actually fighting to have that one spot. snakes dont make friends with eachother, and are quite happy living on their own.

good to know thanks for the advice

most snakes do not have social groups the way people do, the closet thing i can think of is garter snake mating balls, and that is just a mating frenzy. people tend to anthropomorphize animals, and while this can work a bit with your dog or cat, realize that they usually can escape situations that they don't like. When a cat or snake or a person is locked up on a big glass tank, their options are limited, so think about making them as comfortable as possible. Some of the most socialble people need time alone and snakes housed together will never have that luxury. best part is, snakes don't usually pine away for their own kind or most company for that matter, except that of the tastey and edible persuation.

best of luck!

Ball pythons are solitary animals.

2 Ball Pythons housed together can create problems such as stress, going of feed, spreading of diseases, parasites, mites, you are also at risk for serious injuries and sometimes even death.

1 Snake = 1 Enclosure

Originally Posted by breakdown

is it okay to introduce another female to my current females enclosure after a three or four month quarantine as a cagemate or do cagemates have to be memebers of the opposite sex?

I agree with everyone else. If necessary, it can work for a short time, but causes undue stress to the snakes. If you need to house them together, check the enclosure several times per day for fecal and ural matter and clean as quickly as possibe to minimize cross contamination.

Melissa