Is my snake deathly scared of it's own poop or am I doing something wrong

When he was a hatchling/under 600g I used paper towels as a substrate he did the same thing after every poop- bang his head on the lid/thrash around the enclosure and I would subsequently throw everything out, wash the tub, and he would ball back up under his hide as usual.


I recently tried out Reptibark as a new substrate however (eventually switching to an acrylic tank for display in the future) and all has been going well until 2 days ago- it's been the first time he's pooped/peed in 2 weeks, I tried to spot clean the place where he pooped (under the hide) but he's avoiding that spot like the plague and is trying to escape from the enclosure again.


Here's a picture of the setup: The hide is part of an old architecture assignment mockup I found and modified to fit in the tub. It's extra long and covers both the cool side (79 deg) and warm side (93) and the humidity seems to be right too.


http://i.imgur.com/irGwNnv.jpg



What am I doing wrong.. is spot cleaning maybe not enough? Do I have to throw out all the substrate every time he poops if I'm going to be using bark as substrate :(

He might just not like the substrate. 93 on the hot side seems high to me. I keep my temps at 88 hot side and 79 cool side. Is your snake thermos regulating by going back and forth? Maybe he doesn't like the hides? Does he wander around in the day or just at night? Wandering in the night is fine, if he does it during the day, then he doesn't like something. All my snakes and especially my beardie, hate their own poops. My beardie wont even poop in her cage. She bangs on the front corner of the cage whenever she has to poop. I then give her a bath and about 30 secs into the bath, she lets loose. Then tries to get out of the poo water tub. Then I clean it and give her a fresh bath and she is happy again.

As for spot cleaning, you have to assess how much damage is done from the impact zone. Like my 6' BCI girl will decimate any aspen within 6" of the impact zone so I have to do huge spot cleans. Poop isn't too bad so I have a smaller area. Do you scoop up all the stuff around the area and then spot clean it with Chlorhexadine or F10SC? That's what I do and all my snakes are fine with it. Just wait until your snake decides to body paint the cage with her urate. Omg I had to clean everything on top of scrubbing my big girls whole face and head and body as she got urate ALL over. Only place I didn't find it was on the ceiling of the cage. The plexi door had white war paint across it haha.

93 is fine for the basking spot.
http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?t=127203

Not sure what to tell you about your BP. could be he's not used to the new substrate, could be he can still smell his waste - they would move from their rodent hole once they shed and shat in the wild. Mine will be pretty much telling you when they mess - sitting on top of their hides or clinging to the lip of their water bowls so they don't have to touch anywhere they might get mess on them. But they usually settle down once I've scooped out the soiled bits.

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This behavior is not all that abnormal. Wild ball pythons will vacate their homes after they defecate and or shed. Their prey can smell it. Mating ball pythons will crap all over the place and they seem to really like being in their own mess as some kind of foreplay. So my guess is it isn't that he is afraid of his own crap he just thinks the smell is going to deprive him of a meal.

BTW I only use paper towels. It is not eye pleasing but i sure makes my life easier.

They hate poop and pee. Mine is very unhappy until I get it all taken care of. I try my best to clean up as fast as possible.

Pffft omg my girl must be extra lazy slobs then. They'll both poop/pee then sit on it so I have to move them to find what's smelling.

Babies. No, c'mon. Das gross.