Quote Originally Posted by JodanOrNoDan View Post
All my snakes are racked. Out of thirty breeding females, only 3 still have hides and those are out right now because they are getting ready to lay. There is no set rule for this other than it depends on the snake. If you have enough of them you learn to tell when they want/don't want the hide. If they are laying outside of it all the time, they don't want it. If they start hiding under the paper, go on an unpredicted hunger strike, or start to become defensive, they get a hide. If you are going to error though, error for having the hide.
Just to note, this fairly new (& unbred, I assume) snake's hide was removed for having a tiny wrinkled (damaged) scale on it's back...