Homemade Hides!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

Hi guys,

Recently over on iHerp.com a user named Leah Gray had this great post about a recipe for homemade hides she got on another snake forum. I decided to try it for myself and I was able to verify that this recipe works! I am going to re-post it here, along with the photos of the process that she posted herself as she was trying the recipe out. Photo credit and the following post credit goes to her:

You will need:
2-2 1/2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons vegatable oil
Krylon waterproofing spray paint (Called Matte Finish...it's clear)
Texture spray paint (instant stone!)
Oven-safe mold [In my case, I used a banana bread tin, some people have used store bought hides and just used them as the mold, can use oven safe cermic bowl, pie pan, anything oven safe!]
Mix the flour and salt, then slowly add the water and mix. Mix in the vegatable oil and mix until the dough is not sticky but not too dry to mold. Add more flour as necessary.
Roll dough flat about 1/2 inch thick with a rolling pin. Put a thin layer of vegatable oil on the mold (very important!!), and then place the flattened dough onto the mold and shape it, make sure you cut out the door for your snake! (I found it easiest to place the mold on top of the flattened dough upside down, then flip all over at the same time and the dough is on top of the mold without ripping/stretching)
Place the dough-covered mold onto wax paper or parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and bake in the oven on 250* for about an hour. Depending on the mold, you may have to take it out, take the mold off, and flip it over to bake on the oposite side too (I had to do this for mine).


[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Shannon/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-3.png[/IMG]



This is mine after I took it out of the oven. Next, you let it cool, and spray the waterproofing spray paint on the inside and out of the hide, this makes it easier to clean. After a day or so, you can use the textured spray paint to create a rock-like hide for your snake.

Now, some notes for me to add after trying it for myself!

-the dough is very soft... if you are making a larger hide, it gets kind of hard to flatten out and then pick it up to put it over your mold. In my case... being all artsy and what not, I used some fake rock hides as my mold. One was the XL exoterra cave (large enough to house a carpet python) and I had to make two batches to get enough to cover it. You could easily make several small hides from one batch though. A neat trick that I figured out to get the flattened dough on top of a larger item was to flatten it out on a piece of wax paper. Then Roll up the wax paper like you would a rug, and then unroll it with the dough facing down over the hide. If you roll it without wax paper it sticks to itself and becomes a big doughball. You want the hide to be thick and sturdy, but not overly thick because it it's too thick it takes FOREVER to bake. I had to bake my big hide for 2 hours, the first hour on the mold, the second hour I popped it out of the mold and baked upside down. I then went even further and let it air dry for a week before I coated it. By the time air dry was done it was VERY hard, not even scratchable with my nails.

A smaller hide is obviously much easier to work with. Don't forget to cut the hole out before you bake it because once it's baked, its HARD. You could sculpt this stuff into so many different forms and if you wanted... you could get really creative and make some awesome multileveled hides.

The key to success is that you MUST not skimp on the water proofing spray. For obvious reasons! Since it is mde with flour and salt, if it's exposed to water it can go soft again. but as long as you apply a generous waterproofing coat, then paint it, then water proof again... you can't go wrong! It's cleanable and it's affordable! And it looks great! I will have to take some pictures of the ones I made.

I hope some of you try this out.. it's fun... I think it would be even more fun if there were kids involved!

[snakeman]

You have way too much time on your hands Shannon!lol

[Stefan-A]

Yeah, I first saw people making hides of that stuff years ago. I always wondered how long they last.

[Sonya610]

So you can pop exo-terra type hides into the oven and bake them as the mold? I may try this, my bp is barely fitting in her current fave hide and if i could add half an inch of height she would like it.

Just worried about baking store bought hides and having them crack. Instead of air drying for a week I would have just left it in the oven at 150 or 200 degrees over night.

But this is cool I may try it!

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

My exoterra didn't seem any worse for wear

[Tlaka]

What do you think about using aluminium (the one that is used to cook, don't know how you call it :P) as the mold? you can create any shape, i don't know if i explain myself well

[Sonya610]

What do you think about using aluminium (the one that is used to cook, don't know how you call it :P) as the mold? you can create any shape, i don't know if i explain myself well

You explained yourself very well. Brilliant idea! As long as it was balled up and could support the dough aluminium would work very well.

(Without males we would not have bridges or air conditioning or the internet...or aluminium molds to bake hides around!)

[Tlaka]

hehehehe ok i'm very excited i want to make some hides and rocks for my ribbon snake and my skink, my morning was very boring until i read this post, so let's bake some hides!!!!!!!!! i'll let you know my progress and thanks a lot

[RedSidedSPR]

Nice. I might try that. Or something like it.

[Didymus20X6]

Little Dude likes her Thatch Roof Cottage. As long as Trogdor doesn't show up, she's perfectly content.

Speaking of Trogdor, when I was at Chichen Itza not long ago, the guide told us that the Mayan god was basically a winged serpent, and that the people live in thatch roof cottages. It just so happened I was wearing my Trogdor shirt when he told us this.

This looks like a cool idea, except for the fact it's basically bread dough, and if it gets the slightest moisture in it, it'll become a problem. But you could easily substitute the bread dough with one of those plastic Ziplock containers, and paint it the same way.