My ball python needs a new, larger hiding/snoozing spot. I’m looking for interesting, creative, good-looking, cheap and/or easy ideas for something I can make, or buy something inexpensive and re-purpose it. The pre-made hollow “logs” at the pet store are hideously overpriced, and also, hideous.
I’ve considered clay flower pots. But they’ll roll. I considered breaking shards off one and setting the remainder however it’s most stable, but I think the jagged edges might be off-puttingly sharp.
The final item needs to fit in a narrow tank that’s only one foot deep. I’ll come back in a second with a picture for better scale.
My snake’s hidey-holes are a piece of plywood with 2x4s on two edges, leaving the back and front open. You can easily cut these to whatever size you like, and snakes really like that 4" height - high enough to move around in and curl up, but low enough to feel safe. There’s nothing they can wrap around, which means you can easily pick up the holes and get access to your snake, which I know is important with Ball Pythons.
This design can be as simple or fancy as you like. I actually left mine painted gloss white so that they’re easy to clean because he sometimes poops on top. (In fact, he enjoys sitting on top of them about 10% of the time). You can easily decorate them: put more of your fake grass on top. Glue moss on the sides - that kind of thing. Alternatively, buy nicer veneered lumber like you might use for book shelves or cabinets and stain/varnish them to enhance the wood grain and make them poop-resistant.
You can even stack one on top of the other if you want your snake to have a choice of heights in his hiding places.
My current snake is a 5-ft Mexican Red Tail Boa. He’s actually very similar to the Ball Python I owned as a kid, except that he’s much less temperamental and more active. They even look similar, and 5 feet is about the max size for the males of the Mexican variety. His overall enclosure is actually a closet built out of the underside of our stairs with a standard glass/screen storm door over the front - 8 feet tall at it’s tallest, 10 feet deep at its deepest and 2.5 feet wide all the way back. There are four shelves at different levels. One of the hidey holes is on the bottom and the other is on the highest shelf with the hot rocks. His hidey-holes are about 12" by 15".
Caveat snakeowner - a friend had a beautiful little CA Mountain Kingsnake, and put a cardboard box hide (think Kleenex box) overnight as a stop-gap while waiting for a hide to be delivered. The snake tipped the box over, effectively trapping herself inside, on top of the heat pad, where she overheated and died.
Freak accident, maybe, but all the hides I’ve ever used since have had multiple escape routes.
