A Happy Ball is...

[Bogertophis]

Great question:
Hiding is normal for snakes...it's how they survive in the wild. I'm not sure 'happy' is the right term, but it's close enough.

Hides come in all shapes & sizes...not all of them make snakes equally 'happy'. What snakes want is to feel "secure", & for that, experience tells us they favor hides
that are just slightly bigger than the coiled snake, hides that offer "back pressure" (feeling snug, so nothing can sneak up on them) and only one doorway that's just
big enough for them to fit thru (with a meal, don't forget that, lol).

Things like "skulls" or open-ended half-logs make for nice cage decor & "clutter" (snakes prefer not to feel out in the open where predators tend to swoop down & eat
them) but sorry, they aren't really good "hides". While I'm on the subject, never put in any decor that a snake can get stuck in...trust me, it happens, & unless you can
watch over your snake 24/7, sooner or later it will. Wild snakes get stuck in fences & bird netting because their scales are directional & can prevent them from backing
out- they die of exposure or when predators find & eat them when they're helplessly stuck. Our pets can likewise get stuck in the eye-sockets of skulls, or in holes in
driftwood used, or in those cholla logs that I wish they didn't sell. It's up to us to think ahead & either don't use the item, or fix it to make it safe. (I've plugged drift-
wood with a cork glued into place, for example.)

Snakes do best with one hide unheated & one with heat. That's because they mostly choose to feel "secure" over the right temperature IF they are forced to choose.
As good keepers, our goal is to make it so they don't have to choose an improper temperature for digestion, so we give 2 equal hides, one with & one without heat.

As far as the size of hides: it's not practical to buy new hides every time our snakes grow. A larger hide can be filled up to feel snug just by wadding paper towels or
other substrate for the time being. Even various sized clean cardboard boxes can be used, then tossed when dirty -they'll get dirty long before they're too small.
Creativity is fine when creating hides for snakes, as long as it's safe. Really small snakes even like cardboard paper towel rolls: yes, they're open-ended but they can
be flattened somewhat & then buried in substrate; depending on the kind of snake you have, this is a fun option for them. You'll get a sense what your snake likes-
they can be "opinionated" too.

BTW, BPs do more than their share of "hiding" since they're "ambush-predators".