Got this idea from seeing someone's else's setup (sorry I'd thank you but can't remember which thread it was in).
Punkin has never been good at using her hides consistently. She tends to burrow under newspaper, papertowels, whatever I try and we were worrying about her being directly on the sterlite over the heater thingy. No matter how many layers of paper we put in she would get under it all. Anyway, what I did was triple her substrate (aspen) so that basically her hides are buried mostly. Then I used my fingers to create downramps into each hide.
Punkin is now using her hides perfectly and has stopped burrowing completely. I'm wondering if she feels safer going into the hides now that she has go travel slightly downwards to get into them? Is this a more natural thing for her as they go into burrows somewhat in the wild don't they?
So far it hasn't caused extra husbandry work. Her urate was easy enough to find laying on top of the substrate as usual. Other than having to be diligent with deeper substrate to make sure it stays aired and fresh, is there anything that might be wrong in trying this?
Temps and humidity seem unchanged. Inside each hide there is a normal layer of substrate, the deeper substrate is just around and between the hides and still allows for reasonable head room for Punkin to move around her tub.
Any comments or suggestions? Sorry no cam so I can't post a pic of my new set-up.
~~Jo~~