In the UK I've seen some fairly... distressing... shops and shop keepers. It'd be a wonderful thought that a shop would never give bad advice... but in the last month I've been to see one person who was told a heat mat would not exceed the temperature for his snake (It was getting up to 140 degrees fahrenheit - no wonder his snake was staying on the cool side under the water dish!) and been lied to by other shop staff when I ask questions to which I already know the answer (How long has this animal been here, is it wild caught or captive bred - the correct answers would have been "about two years" and "wild caught but long term captive", not "About three weeks" and "captive bred, for sure.")
With the exception of a very few specialist reptile shops over here I trust what *I* have researched about reptiles much more than I trust Jonny Paycheck behind the counter.
That calcisand isn't AS bad as the other stuff, but generally speaking I don't rate ANY kind of sand for any animal that is not a dedicated dunes species. Corn snakes most definitely aren't sand dune species - they're temperate woodland/grassland animals - so I wouldn't give them sand.
Being a leopard gecko keeper first, I have to say that encouraging your animals to eat the substrate is a great way to lose animals to impaction. Eating large quantities of calcium sand lowers the acidity of the guts (Imagine eating Rennies or Tums), which makes the sand much less digestible, which means that it builds up instead of being digested.
fish are happier in shoals, Gazelle are happier in herds.. Why wouldn't snakes be happier together?(What do you call a group of snakes, anyway?)
I don't think there's a specific collective noun for a group of colubrid snakes... probably because they don't group. Yes, rattlers and garters do form groups at very specific times of year and for very specific reasons (brumation/heat reservation in the case of rattlers, breeding and heat reservation for garters)
I have to admit my own personal observations based on having twenty+ snakes is that they sure don't seem to "miss" other reptilian companionship. Even my male leopard geckos, who I'd say rank above snakes in intelligence (even if only slightly) do not "miss" companionship - the only time they seem to want any kind of company is when they can smell females and actively want to mate - and then, it's not that they want company, it's that they want to breed. One of my males will amuse himself on cage furnishings - surely he isn't thinking that the plastic plant is his girlfriend.
I don't think they could be brother and sister - they are different phases
But I see what you're saying.
I can see quite an easy way that they could be siblings, even given the limited gene pool in the UK. All you need is for one parent to carry caramel, motley, amel and hypo, and for the other parent to also carry amel, caramel, motley and hypo. Visually, the parents could be an Amel Motley het Amber and an Amber het Amel Motley ... that'd give you all the ingredients you needed. Granted, it's not completely LIKELY but it's still possible.
I've got one pair of snakes that could produce at least eight visual morphs - and some of them you might not guess were siblings at all. In fact, I'm hoping to get a group that might produce something VERY like your two - as siblings (I want a Lava het caramel, amel, motley and a Caramel het lava, amel, motley - that could produce visual Lavas and visual Butter Motleys too.)
Well... in a practical sense, does it matter if cannibalism was CAUSED by the cohabitation when not co-housing means that it's impossible for one corn to eat another? I can state with pretty high certainty that I have never and will never experience cannibalism in my corn snakes for one simple reason... they do not live together and never will.
Pretty difficult to eat your future mate if the closest you can get to him is the wall of your house
Granted, it does make ACTUALLY mating a bit difficult, and I'm just hoping my corns aren't shy when it comes to mating while I watch and make sure nobody comes to harm!
