Another issue with Red Bean (Honduran milk snake)

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I feel like I post asking for help a lot, but I have anxiety and my snakes love to make me worry.

We had a stressful couple of days (long story) for Red Bean at the start of this month. I have a curtain I installed in front of the area their cages are in and that usually gives them privacy, plus the other 3 sides of their cages are solid PVC. Red Bean gets stressed easily and I had to take the curtain down for a few days.

In this time he refused to go in his hides and liked to sit behind the hide, but visible to me which was weird since I would think if he was stressed he’d hide more. I checked his hides to see if he pooped in them but nope. I got the curtain back up but he continued doing this, and now multiple times I have caught him soaking in his dish. I checked him for mites, checked the water each time, never saw any mites. Idk if it would be worth the stress to soak him to see there’s any mites, but this has been for a while now and all of my other snakes are acting normal and the cages are stacked so I would think the mites would have travelled. This has actually happened a couple times with my other snakes, a long time ago, where they freaked me out by soaking when they had never done it before. But never for this long.

Is it possible 80°F is too warm for him? This would explain the soaking but not the sitting out in the open since I actually had to have his heat panel off while the curtain was down. I have no idea why it’s that warm and just adjusted the thermostat, it sucks because I have a herpstat 4 and pro heat panels but I can never seem to keep the temperatures consistent. No idea why it’s this warm because it’s winter and his hot side now won’t get over 85°. Normally it’s about 75-78° on the cold side even when the hot side is 88-90°. The only other thing I can think of is too low humidity, but his humidity gauge broke so I can’t measure it right this second. However, I have tested the humidity in my room multiple times and it’s usually around 40%, so I’d imagine being a PVC cage it would be at least this amount.

He is eating fine. The only reason any of this worries me is because it’s not normal for him. He is usually in his hides during the day and exploring at night.

[Lord Sorril]

I kept Honduran milk snakes in my early reptile days (for many years). I did not use a thermal gradient. I kept them at 75F ambient (5F night drop to 70F), with a 85F constant hot spot (UTH) on 20% of the floor. IMO: they seemed to start to show signs of stress above an ambient temperature of 80F, but, they definitely enjoyed basking on the hot spot after eating...
As to why I still don't have them: I did not find their digestive process as 'clean' as a ball python and I eventually rehomed them when they were large and I had enough of the odor...

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Thank you, I also wonder if the soaking is just because he wants to feel secure in the bowl. Because now he’s sleeping under a small piece of cork bark and smushing his neck/head between the glass and pvc of his cage. The cork doesn’t cover him at all but I wonder if the problem is his hides are too big and he wants to feel more secure. He’s had these hides for about a year so I’m not sure why he’d suddenly not like them but I’m going to give him smaller hides to see. I didn’t think he could fit in the next size down but I’ll try anyway.

[Bogertophis]

Thank you, I also wonder if the soaking is just because he wants to feel secure in the bowl. Because now he’s sleeping under a small piece of cork bark and smushing his neck/head between the glass and pvc of his cage. The cork doesn’t cover him at all but I wonder if the problem is his hides are too big and he wants to feel more secure. He’s had these hides for about a year so I’m not sure why he’d suddenly not like them but I’m going to give him smaller hides to see. I didn’t think he could fit in the next size down but I’ll try anyway.

Instead of buying new hides (that will also smell different to him- might matter?) you can try just stuffing something in each hide to make them "cozier"- like a wad of paper towel or whatever.
Milk & king snakes do like to burrow & get under things. When I kept them, they were the ones that would dig their way under their substrate & all. Snakes in general don't like over-sized hides or hides with "high ceilings" or large doorways.

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I can try that first to see if it helps, although I do have at least one of his old hides so I don’t think it will smell too different. He burrows a lot but he’s actually pretty out in the open where he has been “hiding”. I do try to keep their hides small but I really didn’t think he could fit in his old hides anymore, and the ones he has now are the next size up.

[Bogertophis]

I can try that first to see if it helps, although I do have at least one of his old hides so I don’t think it will smell too different. He burrows a lot but he’s actually pretty out in the open where he has been “hiding”. I do try to keep their hides small but I really didn’t think he could fit in his old hides anymore, and the ones he has now are the next size up.

Some snakes really like the feeling of "back pressure" when they hide. (ie. hides with a low ceiling- a cave-like feel)

[Spicey]

Some snakes really like the feeling of "back pressure" when they hide. (ie. hides with a low ceiling- a cave-like feel)

I'm having that issue with mine right now. He only really likes a dog bowl that I put in there because it was very snug when he was young (and I could feed him in it without upsetting his environment). When he outgrew that (it was more like a shell on a turtle!) it took a while to get him used to a bigger bowl but it's got sharpish edges on it that I don't like, even though I tried to dremel them off. I'm probably going to have to make a ceramic hide that is low enough to make him happy but big enough around that he can fit into it, with an appropriate-sized hole. I bought a "cave" for him but he prefers the snug fit of the dog bowl.

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I actually recently saw someone selling ceramic hides that looked exactly like upside down bowls, just with a cut out for the opening. I didn’t see a name for their business though. I think the idea you have of making one would work great though so you could make the exact size you need.

I did end up ordering two more hides for Red Bean so we’ll see how that goes. I can add some scent from his aspen to them if he’s freaked out by the new smell. I think his current hides are just way too big so even stuffing with aspen/paper towel doesn’t really work. I didn’t realize how big they were until he started having this issue, my other king snake has the same hides but I guess he’s much bigger than Red Bean since he seems to fill up the hide just fine.