housing

[frodo]

Just wondering if i could get some advice on housing an 11month old marray darling and a 8 moth old coastal together if i provided enough hides would this be a good idea?or would they be likly to fight and maybe kill each other..

thanks alot Frodo

[Gregory]

Never a good idea to house different species together. I've heard too many horror stories about cannabilism.
I have my 2 Murray Darlings together but they have been together pretty much all their lives. I wouldn't go mixing species though.

[wattso]

From what ive been told here, one might eat the other! prolly not a good idea mate! suppose it depends on size of both.

[Artie]

Not a good idea to keep different species together.
Your Coastal will prob. grow a bit bigger as well and maid well have a nice dinner one day.
If one is more dominant, the other will have a stressful life as well.

[frodo]

Damn guess that rules out getting a Murray Darling. I was looking forward to having one 2!!

Thats for the advice!!

[Whaa]

what are people oppinions on keeping 2 snakes of the same species together? eg. childreni how do threy get along with living with another snake

[NCHERPS]

Frodo,
Why don't you wait a while, save up and buy another viv, and then get your Murray Darling?

[frodo]

yeah its just that ive got one available to me now so i was wondering if it was alright to house them together, but ill have to wait until i can afford another viv before i get one.

[maximus]

If you cant keep 2 different species togethor then how do u introduce them to each other for cross breeding?

[Switch]

Why would you want to cross breed?
I personnally think thats playing with nature, the reptile we ahve here in Australia are awesome and lots to choose from, be happy with what you got i say.

[africancichlidau]

Here here, or should that be hear hear Sparky

[wattso]

Just a question about canniblist snakes. I have read that Black head pythons will often eat elapids? how do they survive the venom? they must surly be tagged? also wouldnt it take quite a while to constrict a snake to death, given their low oxygen requirements????

[Switch]

I seen a Doco on Pay TV about how the rattlesnake was imune to its own venom, they were checking it out to help with antivenoms and all that clever stuff, so perhaps the Black Heads are imune to venom of certain snakes also ?

[Switch]

Actually it might have been on cobras, i cant remember, too many beers since then, but some snake was clever like that anyways.

[Fuscus]

Ahhh, another thread that has split into different streams.
1/ My two water pythons have grown up together and there doesn't seem to be any domanace games. In fact they seem to like each others company and will often volunteeringly sit together. However one is growing faster than the other so that is a bit of a worry.
2/ Don't crossbreed for economic reasons. Once hybrids get into a captive population they stay there. You then find that a price differenial appear between pure strains and hybrids. What could happen is you can buy a pair of "Darwins", breed them then find that they are darwin x coastal hybrids and shops/other hobbists will only offer minimal price for the animals. This is what has happened amounst captive cichlids. It is also illeagal to cross breed (even amounst strains) native animals in SA. I don't know about other states.
3/ BHPs (as do Red-bellied black snakes) feed mainly on other reptiles including venomous snakes. So there is a strong evolutional pressure to develop defenses against venom. This can range from hard to peirce skin, loose skin or other devices that prevent envenomation to genuine immunity.
4/ Constriction of reptiles would take longer than mammals but that wouldn 't matter much to the snake doing the constricting.