Some back ground: I have a 2 foot long Milk Snake as a pet. I also have one and three quarters cats - that’s a cat and a cat with three legs
My cats spend some time each day looking into the snake’s terrarium. He has plenty of places to hide, but I wonder what this kind of surveillance is doing to his mental state. It is hard to determine “weird” behavior in reptiles, the only when they don’t eat do their caregivers worry. My leg-less pal eats very well.
On the other hand, Prozac and other mental health drugs have helped other pets, including birds. Dogs and cats have been known to display signs of depression.
Bascially, can reptiles go nuts and is my snake at risk?
With a brain the size of a snake’s there is very little that can go wrong. It is mostly instinct that they rely on. You might have more to worry about with your cats, since they have been denied so long.
I would imagine the snake has figured out that he/she is safe by now. However, have you seen any sign of her/him giving the cats the eye. I mean with the one only having 3 legs the snake may think he has an advantage. It’s a cruel world out there.
While a “fear overload” might be a possibility, I think it unlikely. A snake that is separated from cats by a glass cage probably views cats as simply a smaller, less helpful variety of human (since the cats never provide it food or water or remove any mouse bolus).
Most milk snakes are now captive bred and have never developed the flight instincts when encountering mammals that they may have originally been born with.
As a close analogy: when we drop mice into the snake tanks, it is quite common to see the mice go right up to the snakes to sniff at them and see what they are. The snake enjoys this “offering,” but there is no evidence that the (captive bred) mice have any fear of the (utterly alien to them) snake.
