Lesson Learned.

[Primogen]

I recently got hold an adult female Ridleys rat snake 1.8m, on Sunday the 6th I took her out of quarantine and introduced her to the enclosure.
She was going to be sharing the enclosure with the male 1.4m that was currently in there, Its a decent sized enclosure 1200x900x900mm.

I was hoping they would be alright together as they are male and female and they seemed fine at first, at least as far as I could tell.
I checked on them this morning only to find the female viciously chasing and trying to bite the male as he tried to get away.
I removed her immediately suffering a few bites along the way.

Here is the males current damage(nothing serious) still need to check him out fully.


Please no arguments about co-habitating, I tried something and it did not work.
This is just a little information to hopefully prevent others from the same mistakes.

[iiviii]

I take my hat off to you. Most people that post normaly only brag about what they have accomplished, very few post mistakes that they have made. I myself have kept various snakes with their mates in cages and have been fortunate enough to never have any incidents. As you said, a lesson learnt. Thanks for sharing.

[Westley Price]

Good example of what can (but not always will) happen in situations where snakes are housed together.

Even though Ridley's are known to be quite agro, this could easily have happened to Corns, Kings or any other species supposed to be docile.

Thanx for sharing.

[Ruan Stander]

I housed snakes together for about five years with no trouble, even different species. Then one morning I woke up to one's tail disappearing down another's throat.
It's not predictable and it's odd how things can go sour overnight as in your case, over a period of five years as with mine or never at all.
I have only recently decided to house every single snake seperately. Rather safe than sorry.

Glad your male is ok, could have ended much, much worse.

[Primogen]

Thanks for the replies, the male is fine aside from the minor bite damage and has calmed down since the separation.
I wanted to breed them this year but I think I will give it a miss on account of the females insistence to attack everything.

[Bushviper]

I would also re-sex the snakes to make sure about the sexes.

[Primogen]

Thought the sexes might be wrong as well, as I know males fight, but resexed them to be sure and its still male and female.