New hide issues

[sunnig96]

Hi! I've had my banana BP Frank for a little over a year now. For the first couple weeks that I had him, he would climb around the cage quite a bit due to stress. I finally perfected his husbandry and he began acting completely normal (hiding for most of the day, occasionally peeking his head out or leaving his hide when he was hungry or thirsty).

He has grown a LOT this past year. I used to place moss and paper towels in his hides so that he would feel secure because he was so small, but now he has grown so much that he barely fits in his hot side hide and sometimes lifts it off the ground because he is so big. (He uses his hot hide 90% of the time, he rarely goes to the cold side)

I bought him a (very similar but bigger) new hide several months ago and replaced his old favorite hide with it. He refused to enter the new one 90% of the time, and when he did enter it he would very soon leave and start climbing around again. At first I just replaced it with his old hide because I was worried about stressing him out, but now he is so big he can barely fit his body inside of the cave so I HAD to put the new hide in.

I have had his new hide in permanently for about two weeks. He stays in it more than he used to, but still comes out and climbs around MUCH more often than he did before. I would say about 20-30% of each day he is now climbing around. I hate to see him look so stressed out, but he physically cannot fit in his old one anymore. Do you guys have any suggestions for helping him get used to this new hide? Have yall experienced this before?

Thanks,

Sunni

[Sunnieskys]

Hello to a fellow sunny.

Domyou have two identical hides now or just one new one? You need two identical so they don't choose comfort over temperature.

also what are your temps?

Hot side
cold side
ambient temp
humidity
uth? Regulated by thermostat (not thermometer)?
temperature at the glass on hot side?

pic if you can (use the tapatalk app for pic upload)

[sunnig96]

Hi!!!

My two hides are very similar in size and shape but not completely identical - I was wondering if that could be a problem.

Hot side is at 90, cold side 80, ambient is 80ish

humidity fluctuates (I live in Texas so certain days the humidity is VERY high) but the past week its been around 45-50%

I have a thermostat regulator for my uth, I also use a ceramic heat bulb in the winter which is also connected to the thermostat

Temp at the glass on hot side is 90!

[SVT Wylde]

My Ball Python is just plain OCD and be sounds a lot like yours. He hangs out of both ends of a tiny half log hide and refuses to use the new slightly larger hide I gave him a few weeks ago. I placed his old hide on the cool side and his new hide on the warm side and he would rather sleep between the new hide and the glass.

I gave in and moved his old hide back to the warm side and he’s a happy camper again.