I am back with another question about my daughter's new love, Slinky. I think he's about 5 months old.

(We've had him 2 plus weeks now and I'm as infatuated as my daughter.) He is still quite shy although he eats from her hand and will crawl onto it now and then.

He has a tupperware-type container (not clear, solid blue) which is located in the middle of his 10 gallon container (slightly toward warm side), where he spends most of his daylight hours. It has sphagum (?) moss in it and we spray it daily if he comes out for an explore. The hole to get in is about 1.75 inches and it's located on the side. We try to never disturb him in his hide, even if guests request a peek.

We have kind of a mix of substrate. I know lots of people say NO SAND but we didn't know that to start and so he had it when we first settled him in. The thing is, he seems to LOVE digging in it. We've put in some slate and some bits of carpet, but he seems to like the sandy parts the best. I had the idea that we could ease him off it, but I guess he'll have to go cold turkey at some point. We were just thinking maybe we'd wait till he was more settled in before we took the sand away - trying to minimize stress. In the meantime I'm watching for impaction symptoms and taking all the precautions.

So, here's the question: For the last 2 nights, he barricaded himself into his hide, with sand. He piled sand so the entrance hole was blocked. Is this worrisome? My daughter was worried about him when she woke up yesterday, so she reopened the hole (he was fine!) and he left it open for the day. Then last night he filled it in again. It's actually not ALL the way barricaded and I can see his cute little face when I peek through the sliver that's open. But it's pretty well blocked.

I guess it'll stop if we go with carpet/slate throughout the container. But I wondered if it might be a symptom of something else? Excess stress? Might he be getting ready to shed and trying to increase the humidity?

I'd appreciate any thoughts the experts might have... or tales of similar experience. Thanks,

geckoGirlsMom

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