Reptile keeping an in particular, snake keeping is increasing in popularity at a surprisingly fast rate with more and more people adding a snake to their family.
Although the corn snake used to be the most popular type of pet snake to keep, the wide range of ball python morphs available on the market has skyrocketed their popularity and now the ball python is the most popular snake by far.
Due to their huge popularity and the fact that once people get used to keeping one ball python, they usually want another, we usually see a number of people asking if their ball pythons can live together or not.
With there being such a high number of people reaching out and asking about keeping multiple ball pythons in the same vivarium each month, we decided that we wanted to publish our own article going over it as much of the information that we see on social media is incorrect.
In addition that that, we often see slight variations of the question of keeping multiple ball pythons together so we hope we are able to help as many of our readers as possible by answering them all here.
The table of contents below should help you quickly navigate our article and get to the sections of the article that you need information about ball pythons for too helping to save you time.
Can Ball Pythons Live Together?
Ball pythons are a solitary snake that tends not to do well with other snakes in their vivarium.
Keeping multiple ball pythons in the same vivarium for an extended period of time can result in issues with the anxiety and stress levels of the snakes increasing and may result in some aggression between the snakes.
If possible, you should be trying to keep your ball pythons in separate vivarium and not keep them together.
If you have an emergency such as one of your vivarium breaking, a heat lamp not working or an under tank heater being damaged, you may be able to keep two ball pythons in the same tank for a limited amount of time until you correct the issue with the damages vivarium.
With ball pythons being so popular now and some of their rare morphs being worth a huge amount of money, many people try their hand at breeding ball pythons too and will temporarily place a male and a female in the same vivarium.
Outside of those very specific situations, you should be keeping your ball pythons in their own individual vivarium if possible. We have seen some people say that if you have a huge vivarium, you can keep two ball pythons in it but we would still not recommend it.
Multiple, smaller vivariums tend to work out much cheaper than a single huge one anyway while also improving the quality of life for your pet snake due to ball pythons being solitary.
Whats The Best Way To Keep Multiple Ball Pythons?
If you do own multiple ball pythons then you should be keeping them in their own vivariums but many people will build a snake rack to house multiple vivariums as it makes it much easier to keep them heated while also lowering your power bill.
Other ball python owners will have a “snake room” where they keep all of their vivariums to make it easier to keep the supplies in a single place and reduce the time required for vivarium maintenance too.
You also have to factor in your own situations such as the space you have available, your budget, and the time you have available to care for your ball pythons.
All three of these have to be factored in as we see many people getting a second ball python only to end up having problems in either of those three areas with space often being the main problem.
As more and more people are starting to live in smaller apartments, it can be difficult to find the space for multiple suitable vivariums for fully grown, adult ball pythons for many people.
This is why building out a snake rack to hold all the vivariums in a single area of the home is such a popular option for so many people who do keep snakes or even other reptiles.
Can Baby Ball Pythons Live Together?
Baby ball pythons are able to live together for a short period of time but they should be put into their own separate hatchling tanks as soon as possible.
In the wild, a baby ball python would hatch and go off to live alone due to ball pythons being a solitary snakes so keeping baby ball pythons together for an extended period of time is unnatural and can cause issues with the snakes.
The majority of people who do actively breed their ball pythons will usually already have a hatchling tank rack to put their baby ball python snakes in anyway. These are much easier to make than most people initially think and you can often build your own for very cheap
Another popular option that we see time and time again is to use a full size vivarium and add some cardboard to it to use for dividers to break it down into multiple small vivariums for the baby ball pythons.
Depending on your situation, you may have to come up with your own method of caring for your baby ball pythons but we would not recommend that you keep them together for long after hatching.
Can A Male And Female Ball Python Live Together?
A male and female ball python should be kept in separate vivariums unless you are actively trying to breed the two and even then, you should re-separate the male and female ball python into their own vivariums after breeding.
Ball pythons are solitary snakes and keeping two in the same tank can drastically increase their stress and anxiety levels and potentially cause issues with the female developing her eggs.
You will usually leave a male and female ball python in the same vivarium together, usually the female snakes vivarium for two days or until you see a lock.
Most ball python breeders will then put the male ball python back in his own tank for at least three days and if you did not see a lock between the male and female ball python when in the same vivarium, he can then be readded to the females vivarium.
Just keep in mind that a just because you did not see the male and female ball python lock does not mean that they did not breed while you were out of the house or sleeping.
A female ball python can store the sperm from the male ball python for a number of months before choosing to use it to fertilize her eggs too with this being very normal in some situations.
Although it will normally take less than six weeks for the female ball python to lay her eggs after fertilizing them, she doesn’t always use the sperm to fertilize her eggs as soon as she breeds so it can be two or even three months after the pairing when she lays her eggs.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over if ball pythons live together or not to an end. We hope that we have been able to help our readers better understand that ball pythons should almost always be kept in their own, separate vivariums but there are a small number of situations where you may have to keep multiple ball pythons in the same vivarium for a couple of days. Baby ball pythons that have just hatched should usually be put into their hatchling tanks quickly too but depending on the space you have available, some people will keep them in the same tank for a little while.
