Thanks to everyone for their feedback on the "should I/shouldn't I" house Talyn and Q together issue. I've considered the pros and cons extensively.
I even e-mailed a man who has 68 adult Rainbow Boas (12 sub species!) www.rainbowboa.co.uk .I figured he would have the best idea of whether or not 2 unrelated adult females could be housed together in a terrarium 5ft x 2.5ft x 4ft high.
He said to try it: it will be immediately obvious if they are not comfortable with eachother and if that is the case, they will need to be separated.
Respiratory infections, as Rachel pointed out, are usually the result of improper husbandry: in which case, both snakes would suffer.
I always feed in a separate feeding bucket and although it will be difficult to tell who left me which feces and urates, I thought it would be worth trying.

I cleaned out the whole terrarium and sterilized or replaced everything in it with new stuff. Then introduced them at the same time. They get on fine! In fact, they always seem to want to be together! I've provided them with 2 cool hides, 2 warm/moist moss boxes and one warm dry hide. They seem to prefer to squeeze together under one hide than use separate ones!
When I take them out individually and then put them back in on opposite sides of the terrarium, they immediately look around for the other one and slide over there under, over, in between etc.

I don't know about calling them "social animals" but they seem to feel more comfortable together than apart. Here are two pics: The first was what I found when I took away the cool hide box this evening. The second is them squished up together in the warm moss box just after I took them out for weighing and a bit of handling.

Attached Images

	under the hide.JPG (38.8 KB, 39 views)
	in moss box.JPG (36.3 KB, 38 views)

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Andrea

VERY VERY Cute!!! It looks like so far the girls actually seek out each other's company. My experience has been that snakes like to coil together when they are put together. I don't have any experience with BRBs, but my corn snakes, red tailed boas, gopher snakes, green snakes and garter snakes seemed to like to be together. Looks like you have successfully introduced them and they seem to be doing very well. I think if they were not going to get along, you would have seen it immediately. Sorry to hear they won't be making babies, but at least you have 2 beautiful girls.

Great pictures! Keep sending them!

Gorgeous snakes as always Andrea! Glad to hear they get along together.

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+5 bonus points to whoever finds me a job!

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

They are beautiful Andrea! Its a shame that you won't be getting any babies. I was kind of looking forward to having one left on my doorstep in a basket!
Oh well it would probably just have gotten me in trouble anyway!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Thanks Merlin, it is a shame but maybe not a bad delay.
My contact with Spencer at rainbowboa.co.uk has led to a discussion about Talyn. He is now evaluating further pictures of her. He thinks she might actually be an Isla Marajo Rainbow Boa and not a Brazilian Rainbow Boa, as Q obviously is.
I think it's possible that she is a hybrid: someone (like me) didn't know their Brazilian Rainbow Boa was a Marajo and bred it with a Brazilian Rainbow Boa. But who knows, she might be a purebred.

Apparently it is really difficult to tell: there are so many variations among the subspecies. But since this guy actually has 11 Marajos, 9 Peruvians and 7 Brazilians: I think he might be able to give a good guess.

It doesn't change much at the moment, but it's kind of exciting detective work!

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Andrea

They look cool Andrea, nice and colorful, she wont be a hybrid, they are all of the same genus (Epicrates), just different ssp, a hybrid is if she was bred with different sp altogether, glad they are getting on ok

Thanks Donna, I'm never sure of the correct terminology on that: I just meant she could be something of a mix ... although Oxford defines "hybrid" as: "offspring of two animals or plants of different species or varieties"... so I was thinking that it would count for this: 2 different varieties of Epicrates (?)
Either way... I'm still waiting eagerly for this guy's evaluation. I'll let you know when I hear something!

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Andrea

Hi Blackjack,

I thought from previous post that Q was a male and that you were hoping to breed them in the future. Either way they are both beautiful snakes. A few months back I was holding a couple of Brazilian Rainbow Boa babies they were great. I am looking forward to getting one in the near future.
How big of a viv do you keep yours in?

Again, thanks for the pics.

BTW, how is Talyn after his little injuries awhile back?

Take care...

Bill

Hi Bill
Yeah, I thought Q was a male too a while back -- turns out, she's a female. The guy who sold her to me knew it and just lied to my face. (He knew I was looking for a male) Somehow I knew he was lying: I took her to my vet and had her probed.
Buying her was something of a "rescue" because it was clear she was undernourished. I've reported this guy to the Animal Protection Agency... I think they should check out his pet shop and the condition of the other animals there (I don't know if they really will). I'm NEVER going back in that shop myself!

Talyn is recovering very well from her injury, thanks. She'll always have a scar and some white showing through her scales where she lost a piece of skin and the wound had to be stretched shut. Those lost scales will never grow back. But the wound is completely closed, the stitches are out and it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

I keep my rainbows in a 5ft x 2.5ft x 4ft (lwh) terrarium. Although it really didn't need to be that high. They don't really climb as much as I thought they would. They are called "semi-arboreal". Mine seem to spend most of their time under the warm or cool hide boxes or en-route. They do seem to enjoy stretching out the full length of the terrarium in the evenings, so I'm happy I got one so long. If I had it to do over again, I'd get them a wider but less high terrarium.
I think most people keep them in much smaller enclosures than I have and they do well. The most important thing is being able to keep the temps and the humidity at the right levels. (Easier to do when it's less high, but my terrarium is made out of hard PVC (Forex) and glass, so it holds the humidity very well.)

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Andrea

I get mixed up myself sometimes, but the rainbow boas are just different localities, not sp, like the king and corn are colubrids, yet to breed them would result in a hybrid as they are diff sp...