Remove Hides?

In the past, I noticed my ball preferred to hide under the sheets of newspaper substrate rather than his 2 exo-terra hide caves (1 on cooler and 1 on warmer side of the enclosure) just prior his shed. However, for the past 2-3 weeks, he's always looking to hide under the newspaper rather than use the provided hides even though he hasn't gone blue. He's also been refusing feed the past approx. month and I haven't been able to get him to eat yet. The food refusal isn't something that's stressing me too much. I'm just wondering, considering that he seems to prefer hiding under the sheets of newspaper, should I even both keeping his 2 hide caves in the enclosure?

Are the hides tight, some like to be real snug so they can feel it around them, might be wht she feels more secure under the newspaper. Or then again maybe it's warmer there?

What I would do in this situation is.

Make sure the enclosure isn't too big for my snake

Make sure his or her hides aren't too big or too small.

Make sure I'm maintaining the right temps. Snakes will burrow down towards the heat in order to get warm.

Make sure I'm providing the right humidity. Maybe even raise it. The humidity is higher on the bottoms of enclosures. Underneath everything.

I'd also make sure I wasn't doing too much to make him or her stressed. Causing him to feel vulnerable. Thus making him seek out different coverage somewhere else in the enclosure.

Hope this helps :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by West Coast Jungle

Are the hides tight, some like to be real snug so they can feel it around them, might be wht she feels more secure under the newspaper. Or then again maybe it's warmer there?

---

When he's in the hides, it's tight...he's snuggled up against the sides. He always used to stay in the hides except during a shed...so I think the hide size is OK.

However, something I just noticed and forgot to mention. The past few weeks I had switched to kraft paper and he was constantly hiding under that. When I had used newspaper in the past, he only hid under that during a shed cycle. Tonight, right before I had submitted this thread, I had cleaned his cage and went back to newspaper. That was about 2 hours ago. I just checked on the dude right now and after roaming around for a bit, he's now inside the hide once again. Wonder if the substrate (eg. newspaper vs. kraft paper) had anything to do with his behaviour? But then again, it's only been 2 hours, so is could possibly be that he wasn't able to find an opening between the sheets of newspaper to crawl under so went back to the hide for security. I'm going to check again tomorrow morning to see where he ends up after a typical active night for him.