I have only noticed this once, but it was enough to make me concerned. After feeding the other day, Shesha spent about five hours coiled in the top of the climbing branch under the heat lamp. Normally he goes into his cool hide and stays there for the next couple of days (in fact he hasn't used his hot hide that I have seen since discovering the cool one). I am running a thermostat so the temp in the hot hide remains at 90 and the bedding layer is thinned out so he should definitely be able to tell it is warmer there, but for some reason he just isn't interested. I had asked about this a while back and everyone basically said to trust him and that if he feels that he needs the heat he will use it. The prolonged basking under the lamp the other day makes me think he needs heat, but isn't basking under top heat unhealthy? I don't want it to dry him out or anything, and it seems that he still isn't getting the belly heat he needs that way. The ambient temps are never lower than 78 so he shouldn't be cold.

I had tried switching the hides before. Both are half logs but one is smaller than the other. Oddly enough, he seems to prefer the larger one over the tighter fitting one. I figured maybe he just didn't like the hide on the hot side, but even after putting his preferred hide on that side he still went to the cold side. The only other thing I can think is just that for some reason he likes the corner the cool hide is in. Would it possibly be a good idea to flip the tank around so that the heat mat is under the side he prefers and the inside of the tank still looks the same to him? I am confident that he would remain on that side with or without the heat mat under it, but I wouldn't want to "force" him into using the heat mat all the time. I guess basically what I am asking is would it be more dangerous to leave it as is and risk him not getting the belly heat or would it be worse to risk him being on the heat mat 24-7 by changing the side. He spends all his time in that one hide so if the heat mat were under it he would be on it constantly. I wasn't concerned before, but since he is showing signs of trying to thermoregulate to get that heat it seems like I may need to intervene somehow.