People often ask what other animals are safe to keep with snakes. The simple answer is that there are none. We’ve explained before keeping other snakes together is a bad idea. It is an even worse idea to keep other animals with snakes.
- Snakes are predators
All snakes are carnivores and when it comes to live food they aren’t always terribly picky about what they eat. In other words any living creature that they can capture and kill is fair game and if trapped in a cage with a snake are well on their way to becoming a meal. - Snakes get stressed easily
If you’ve kept pet snakes for any amount of time you know how easily they can be stressed. If they’ve got other animals running around with them in their tank they are going to get stressed out. This can affect feeding, and temperament. - Other animals may attack your snake
A sad story we often hear is how someone well meaning snake owner left the snake’s dinner in with it overnight only to wake up to a grisly scene. It usually involves a half decapitated snake that has been torn to shreds by a mouse that “got bored”. Hard to say if it was boredom or a “I’ll get the snake before it gets me” reaction or something different but the result is a dead snake.You might expect a snake to simply throw a few coils and kill the annoying rodent, but unless a snake is in hunting mode it often won’t (excuse the expression) lift a “finger” to defend itself. It’s not just rodents which pose a danger to snakes. Frogs will turn an appropriate sized snake into a meal of its own, and the same with various lizards.
- Require different conditions to thrive
A snake, especially a (sub)tropical species requires very exacting temperatures and humidity. Unless the animal you are thinking of housing with the snake comes from the same native area one of them is going to suffer to keep the other comfortable. Hardly fair to either animal.
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