You can make your own humid hide.

Greetings,

I've seen some post on this forum regarding humidity chambers so I thought I would share this. My daughter made this natural looking humidity chamber for her anery (corn snake) and photographed it. We also have one for our royal. It's really simple to make and costs next to nothing to make.

Supplies:
An appropriately sized half log hide
A pair of scissors
A piece of paper
A fine point marker
A short length of rubber tubing (medical type)
A semi rigid piece of plastic


Step 1
Trace the outline of the hide base on a piece of paper.

Step 2
Trace the ends of the log hide on the piece of paper.

Step 3
Cut out the oval shaped template from the piece of paper and wrap it around the log making sure it fits neatly and tightly.

Step 4 (example)
The plastic my daughter used was the box from a software package from Costco.

Step 5
Trace your paper pattern onto the plastic.

Step 6
Cut the pattern out of the piece of plastic and fold then ends around your hide to ensure it has a nice snug fit. This will prevent it from drying out as quickly.

Step 7
Use something round to trace an appropriately sized hole on one end of the plastic. The whole should be somewhat larger than your snake at its fattest point.

Step 8
Take a length of medical tubibg and slit it lengthwise from end to end, making sure that you cut straight, without twisting the tubing. Open the slit and slide the tube around the edge of the hole you previously cut in the plastic . This is important so your snake does not cut his belly going in and out of the hide. Finally, place some damp sphagnum moss inside the hide (ZooMed Terrarium moss will do fine). Your snake now has cozy place to hydrate when it needs or wants to.

Be sure the wood has been sanitized by baking it in the oven before introducing it into the cage. If your worried about mold, you can put 4 coats of clear satin polyurithane (sp?) on the inside of it. If you do, be sure and give it about a week to dry so there's no oder left.


Cheers,
Jason

http://lantech.geekvenue.net/snakes/hbox1.jpg

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Very cool! Thanks for sharing!!

EDIT: WELCOME!

wow thats neato! i might have to try somethin like that!

Well done, and great pictures to boot :) Welcome to the site.

Thats a pretty good idea!!

Wow, that's ingenious! I never would have thought of that, lol. Kudo's to your daughter for being so creative. It's relatively cheap, and doesn't have to ruin the naturalistic look of some peoples cages. Nice!

Are those half-log hides real wood? Are they treated to prevent the gowth of mold? I'd be very nervous about mixing wet moss and wood because mold in a ball pythons environment can be deadly.

-adam

Quote:

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Are those half-log hides real wood? Are they treated to prevent the gowth of mold? I'd be very nervous about mixing wet moss and wood because mold in a ball pythons environment can be deadly.

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That was the first thing I thought. It does have a nice, naturalistic look to it, but safety is a bigger concern for me. The coconut basket hides I've posted about before have a nice natural look and are naturally mold/mildew resistant. They seem to be good for up to several months before they begin to grow mold, so I'd recommend replacing them on about a 4-month schedule.

Edit: By the way, they can be used as either normal hides or humid hides, over a container of damp moss, with entry cut at top, bottom, or in the middle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Marla

They seem to be good for up to several months before they begin to grow mold, so I'd recommend replacing them on about a 4-month schedule.

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Just remeber that long before you can see the mold growing there are unseen mold spores already present that can be very dangerous to your ball python. Please be very careful.

-adam

That's why I recommended about 4 months. I kept one to see how long for mold to actually be visible, and it took almost 6 months under my conditions. Like I said, it's mold-resistant, but it is not mold-proof, so prudence is a good idea.