Sitting on or in water bowls

I just picked up a bunch of new balls (100-150g), which are in 6qt containers. But I have observed that a lot of them, especially the smaller ones, are sitting on or in their water bowl which is at front of tub. By a lot, I mean at some points when I have looked, 4/9 were doing something like this. (other times less)

From reading forums I understand possibilities:
* Soaking for shed -- but seems like too many of them at once
* Killing mites -- I have seen none
* Cooling off -- Until tomorrow I don't have heat tape in this rack so keeping entire room and temps in their tubs in low 80's (80-84). Even at 80 I see them doing this, so I don't think they are trying to cool off? Other context: I believe that several days before I got them, they were without heat in a cool house, hopefully not much less than 70. So relative to that does 80 now feel hot?
* I also put newspaper in which they are not used to, maybe they don't like the feel :)

They all look really healthy to me, and I also got most of them to eat F/T rats last night, so I take this as a good sign of their health too (and they are used to live).

Did I miss any possible explanations? Currently my best guess is temperatures.

My guy did that too where he would only hang out on top of the stuff in his tank. I would definitely double check for husbandry issues but I was told by members here that he was probably just unfamiliar with the substrate. He settled in after a day or two.

Do they have nice tight fitting hides? If they don't feel secure they may be hiding in the water bowl for security.

Alexis that's a great point, I hadn't thought about that. Most of these are in 6 qt and when the hide is so small compared to the snake (like a 28qt to an adult) I figured a hide almost isn't necessary. But I will try this right away and see if they don't prefer that.

Let them settle into their new quarters for a while, they're still getting used to the new place. You're not going to see 'normal' behavior (whatever that is) until they're comfortable with their new homes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jplehmann

Alexis that's a great point, I hadn't thought about that. Most of these are in 6 qt and when the hide is so small compared to the snake (like a 28qt to an adult) I figured a hide almost isn't necessary. But I will try this right away and see if they don't prefer that.

---

Keep us updated :) and as MarkS said they may just need some more time to settle in. I know many people don't use hides in tubs since the tub itself is like a hide but I like to provide all my snakes with hides since extra security doesn't hurt when it comes to bps lol. I haven't had to remove any unused hides since my snakes love theirs. :)

Just to post an update on this: After adding hides and giving them time, they seemed to stop doing this for the most part. So I think one or more of you were right about this. :)