I've read a lot of threads on here where people talk about how much their snakes enjoy hides, and seen people who have three or four hides in one enclosure or who have a hard time getting their snakes to spend any time outside their hides.

I've been watching for weeks now, and I've never seen Houdini in his hide. The closest he gets to hiding is leaving his tail under it while stretching the front half of his body out and going to sleep that way. Mostly he just curls up on top of his hide; apparently it's quite comfortable. From what I can gather this is kind of odd. Harley is a pretty bold little baby, but when nothing's going on in the room, she's always hiding even though she comes out to investigate when I go over to her cage.

What I think makes this really interesting is that I think the reason Houdini never hides is because the enclosure he was kept in for most of his life didn't have a hide in it. There have been several threads recently talking about the potential for captive snakes to survive in the wild. I think this kind of relates to that, since the arguments for it being okay to release a snake often revolve around "they rely so much on instinct, captivity doesn't affect their behavior that much". However, even though Houdini now has several secure, hidey spots he spends 90% of his time totally stretched out in the open and never totally hides.

I think that this may be a legitimate example of the way a snake is raised affecting its behavior contrary to its instincts. What do you guys think? Has anyone else seen anything similar to that? Just thought it was interesting