Making Home-made Hides and Water Dishes

The terracotta ones are a bit of a hassle to chip out an entrance hole Christina to be quite honest. We ruined a lot of them before we gave it up as a bad idea. I do know some here that use a special tool, not sure if it's just a drill with a special bit or what, to put a nice round hole in the bottom (which flipped over becomes the roof) and then you sand the entrance to make is nice and smooth.

As far as paint, you'd have to be careful of what type and how to seal it to make the hide easily washable, yet still snake safe. They do use them for a toilet sometimes. Personally I just prefer plastic for hides. You can get the planter saucers in both terracotta and plastic.

Oh lots of stuff,

1. Target sells this thing called a "ramkin dish" for a buck and change in the cooking department. I don't know what their intended purpose is but they make one of the best water dishes I have ever found. Here is a pic of one,

http://www.jackspirko.com/images/sna...amkin_dish.JPG


2. I like to use paper towel rolls and bury them into the aspen to make tunnels. My house snakes and just about any of my smaller animals love them. You can see why, burried they look perfect for a snake to hide in,

http://www.jackspirko.com/images/sna...owell_hide.JPG


3. I also use plastic sausers for under flower pots, you can cut a hole for the snake with a pair of shears and they are low profile as well.

http://www.jackspirko.com/images/sna...ish_hide_1.JPG

There is a lot of other things I use as well. I have started buying pet water/food dishes at target from the pet isle. They have space underneath and serve as a water bowel and a hide at the same time. The small ones are like 65 cents and the bigger ones are like a buck. The big ones are large enough for a corn or two spotted python adults. I like these even better then the ramkins now because they save space by doing double duty.

Another hide option is shotgun shell boxes. Just cut an access hole and they are perfect for smaller snakes and if you hunt and shoot a lot like I do then you have lots of them available. When they get pooed on etc you just toss them out and put in a new one. I use them mostly for my babies while I wait to sell them off.

I've cut a paper towel core in 1/2 down the length and set it solid on top of the aspen for a hide for CeCe. She loved it. When it got poo-y I threw it out and used the other 1/2. VERY inexpensive...since I buy paper towels all the time for cage cleaning. :D