I don't know what's going on with our little BP (150g) and am getting very discouraged.

Along with suddenly not eating (last meal 1½ weeks ago) and daytime roaming, it has been avoiding its warm hide for nearly a week. At the moment, it's again in the cool hide. The cool side of the tank is only around 70 degrees.

I've tried switching hides around and unplugging the UTH so it's equally cool there, to no effect. It seems like Patriot prefers the location (that end of the tank) rather than the temperature (since both ends are cool now).

That cool end is where the AcuRite is mounted on the glass, which he likes to perch on. That's the end he climbs up vertically to try to escape from. He's never active on the warm end, just that cool end.

Hence, he's been cold all these days. 2 days ago when he started roaming at mid-afternoon, I held him and he calmed right down, seeming to enjoy the heat from my hands. I completely wrapped him up in a towel and had him on my lap like that for about 5 hours, during which he seemed contentedly curled up, asleep.

Is avoidance of heat normal? How long can they do that for? If belly heat is necessary for digestion, perhaps this is tied in with his food refusal.

The next thing I'm ready to try is going back to the original set-up he came with of no cool hide at all. When it was just the tree hide over the UTH, none of these current problems existed. He was a warm, digesting, hiding BP.