When it's not winter this snake is out for hours chillin out looking at the goings on outside his cage maybe hoping for some food. Unless I'm completely missing the ball on this observaton and all my other Pyros do this to, He's not endlessly pacing,rubbing his nose raw, not rattling and musking or cowering from under a rock frightened he's about to become lunch. Can you say the same for your Cal. King when you go to take him out? My experience with the heavily decorated cage like you have is to get musked, bitten and to completely freak out the snake a lot of the time. IF that is the case and thats an IF, Is that fair from a keepers perspective to cause that much stress to your animal? I can generally reach in and take their water bowls and clean and refill witout a flinch even right next to their heads.

I am not a newcomer to the hobby so even though these fake rocks/hides are something that any newcomer can buy at a petco I have purposely bought them rather than the weight of the real thing.I have also purposely left it sparse in there for maintenance sake. Having to remove 3 potted cactuses,2 branches and several peices of bark and slabs of rock every time I change the water or offer food or check on the animal was a deliberate choice not a lack of imagination.

Even if these guys in the wild spend 99.9% of their time underground my animals appear to be adapting just fine and do not act as one of the most "secretive" animals that are out there.
They are not showing any signs of major stress I can see and most folks Have this same experience in captivity with them. I am open to always improving things. I was just using these guys a an experiment on FRs support them all year maintenance program proposal.

Bob.

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Sometimes I think the kid with two pet snakes has something that those of us with 50 to 200 lost a long time ago.

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