There's no accounting for taste!

[Lori P]

Steve, I used some of those same cardboard hides this year and the snakes LOVE THEM!!!!! I've also given them to the mice and rats and they have a ball, darting out the different hoes and climbing on them. I need to find out how to get more of them... hmm, maybe a computer store would give them to me...

[drache]

I always thought they'd like low flat hides best, and I provide them that, so I think it's kind of funny to pick up a regular flowerpot hide and see this little ziggurat of garters has filled the thing to capacity

[anji1971]

That's the part I like the best. When you lift a hide and find a nicely molded pile of snakes. When my big girls do that, I can pick all three up together and they remain in their big old lump. Always makes me laugh!

[bkhuff1s]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that ceramic materials would be cooler to the touch, while cardboard would be warmer (at least it makes since to me). Which might explain why our cold blooded friends would prefer them

[infernalis]

These little ones prefer Styrofoam cup bottoms..

[Sid]

My experience has been that if it is dark on the inside the better they like it, regardlee of whether it's "store bought" or something re-cycled.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that ceramic materials would be cooler to the touch, while cardboard would be warmer (at least it makes since to me). Which might explain why our cold blooded friends would prefer them

Ceramic materials and metals feel cooler to the touch to us because we are warm blooded and we give off heat. Much like when you walk from the carpet to the hardwood, and the hardwood feels cooler, even though they are the same temperature, it is because the hardwood instantly begins conducting heat away from your body, whereas the carpet does the opposite and insulates, reflecting it back to your body. Since snakes do not give off their own body heat. There is nothing for an insulatory material to reflect back, and nothing for a conductive material to steal away, therefore to a snake, they will feel the same!

[GarterNovice]

My ribbon Sku seems to really love coconut hides. As for Stu, my Keelback, I placed some rocks against a vine from walmart to keep it upright and he really enjoys wrapping himself around and underneath them while he sleeps. In fact he's doing that right now. Unfortunately for me he's using the pinky I was trying to feed him as a pillow at the moment. Oh well. Have to try again tomorrow.

[infernalis]

OK Shannon, Food for thought time.

Snakes (all cold blooded animals) rely on external heat sources to regulate their body temperature. Hence basking lamps and ground heat.

Now the snake moves to a thermally conductive surface, the heat energy that the animal just stored will get "pulled away" and since the snake cannot generate it's own heat to replace the loss, it will chill the animal itself down.

So in conclusion, a cold blooded creature such as a snake will be drawn to an insulation source to help it retain the heat it had to "gather" previously.

Since they cannot burn calories to generate their own warmth such as we do, they will try even harder to avoid any contact with a thermally conductive surface, unless it is warmer than they are.

Try this experiment, take a cold metal object (a spoon or fork for example) and press it between your hands for ten minutes, the object will warm up, since it draws away heat from you.

You will re-generate that heat via your own metabolism, and all that will happen is you will have a warm object.

Now measure the temperature of a snake right after it's morning bask, then place the snake on a cold metal object, the temperature of the snake will go down, while the object will not get all that much warmer, since the snake is not generating it's own heat.

Now the snake must return to it's basking to bring it's temperature back up to it's comfort zone.

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

this is very true, as the body of a snake is conductive in nature, but it still would not feel the same to them as it does to us, and heat does not store in their bodies for very long at all. When you pick up a warm snake, even in our hands, their temperature drops very quickly. The insulatory effect of a cardboard hide would help a little, but not a whole lot.