Hides-Post your ideas+methods

[RedSided]

I used to use cardboard hides before I decided to provide a more natural and better looking cage for my snake, I found that the measurements of the moulded plastic hides were not quite right for the dimentions of my viv, they would take up too much room , be too tall and such.I found a geat way to make your own hide and it only takes two mins or so.

Get you self a cheap terracota(speling?) pot ,break it in half and sand off any sharp edges,wash it off and allow it to dry(depending on where you got it you may or may not want to put it in the oven to kill off parasites).

Just squash the half pot down into the substrate so that there is just enough room beween the inside of the pot and the substrate for the snake to squeeze into.It makes a good low profile hide and again you may or may not want to cover the top with subsrate.
There you have it a nice low profile , cheap and customisable hide for your snake.

Im sure many of you have done it before ,but some people may not have the chance to buy hides and such so this ought to help anyone stuck for hide ideas.

Of course you can use almost anything as a hide within reason, keep posting ideas with pictures etc. Im interested to know what you all do

[adamanteus]

Just a quick comment on terracotta plant pots. When you use these it's a good idea to break out the drainage hole in the bottom. Snakes get stuck in that hole! I usually break the pot lengthways (I guess that's what you meant too) and make sure the hole is removed.

[RedSided]

Your right about the hole ,it was a little careless of me to mention, when you cut the pot try to leave the hole on the piece you don't want. I find that thinning the sides toward the back of the pot makes it lay closer to the substrate making a much more "secure" feeling hiding place for you snake.Just my opinion there though.

without further adu heres the diagram just to show you what I mean( I am not an artist )

[rwgsnakes]

my favorite hides are, for when your garters or ribbons are small, a small piece of slate with the sub. dug out from under it.



you cant see under in this pic that well but...

[RedSided]

That gives the same effect as the pot, great idea will I have to try that one next time I re arrange the box

I would take pics but the camera has gone walkabout.

[Stefan-A]

I don't think I have any original solutions. About that plant pot hide, I just knocked a notch in the rim with a hammer, filed down the edges and put it upside down. It got a crack in the process but holds together anyway. The hole in the bottom of the pot is big enough for the male to get through it and I shoved a fake plant into it after I got the female.




A piece of bark between two rocks or just with the substrate dug out from under it. Very basic. And I have a piece of cork bark about 40cm long that's almost like a hollow log. In the corn snake terrarium I have a folded air pistol target and a cardboard tube with a couple of extra holes cut into it. And then there is the "bird house" type hide I made from a wooden sugar "jar".

Not to mention that I was dumb enough to pay for a coconut hide.

[RedSided]

Pretty cool, thats a nice pic.

[adamanteus]

From an aesthetic point of view I prefer cork bark and similar natural looking hides, but obviously they are harder to keep spotlessly clean than a plant pot for example. I guess it depends on which school of though you're from, aesthetic or practical...I'm somewhere between the two!

[KITKAT]

My ordinoides have a plant pot with a chip out of the rim in two places (I used a dremel to make two "mouse holes" in typical Tom n Jerry style)

What's really funny is that my male often sits in the pot and sticks his head up out of the weep hole and looks around.

I gotta get a pic... looks so funny!

[adamanteus]

I'd like to see that picture!