I'm currently planning how to finally set up two or possibly three hides for my vivarium. As the viv is going to take pride of place in the living room I'm going trying to make it look like a little desert world of it's own. This means spending a few quid on hides, backgrounds and fake plants etc.
As I'm buying on line I'm finding it hard to work out which size hide I should be going for. My snake is a 2 year old male. But looking at images on the web isn't making it easy to work out which size is going to be right. So while I am aware that over large hides can be unsettling for smaller snakes would it be OK to buy the large version of the hide and just pack it out a bit with substrate to make it's internal volume smaller? Then as he grows I can increase the volume of the cave till all it has is a layer of substrate underneath? Does that sound workable or am I missing something obvious. I ask as I've not seen it mentioned as an option here before. And I'm reading almost every post.... I'm back to feb 2010 so far
The only problem i could think of with this is in the warm end, if snakey makes himself comfy and pushes the substrate from the sides onto the floor it may cause the temp to drop as the heat finds it harder to get through the extra substrate.
I would think the large would probably be ok though. My smallest corn has a small cave hide and its massive for him so he just curls up on one side of it,or sometimes lays right along the back.
They can get comfy in suprisingly small spaces. For my warm hide I got a large flower pot from a diy store the kind that is sposed to immitate a clay pot. I turned it upside down and sawed off the bottom few inches and cut a hole for the door. I then sandpapered down all the ruff edges and presto I had a hide that had the benefits of drainage holes in the roof for ventilation. I then dismantled a large house plant and poked some of the branches in some of the holes in the roof of the hide to camoflague it a bit. This is plenty big enough for colin to sleep in and he is about three and a half foot long.
1.1.0 Amel Corns Colin and Xena 1.0.0 Dog Talan 1.1.0 Cats Wotsit and Willow 1.0.0 Ferret Chaos
Thanks very much for the tips. I'll actually end up with a medium and a large Exo Terra Reptile Cave (seems I can't order stuff on-line properly (sigh), so I can use the medium on the heat pad and the large packed out with a bit of moss/substrate for the cool side. Someone has bought me a Exo Terra Rock Outcrop thing which can go in the middle and can double up as a moist moss hide in case of shedding issues.
Now I just need my blue moonlight lamp and a recording of chirping crickets on an endless loop and my little desert world will be complete (wink).
Sounds like an awesome little setup, I wouldn't worry about the hide, its gonna be dark inside so he won't see how big it is! I haven't heard of any problems with hide size before.
Hides - a different perspective
Posted - 18/06/2010 : 16:59:23
