Snakes, and surely Kingsnakes, use, live in, and seek, shelters for the vast majority of their life. In FACT, they do not live out. They occasionaly go out for a particular reason.



Kinda like you going swimming, people do go swimming, but do not live in the ocean. A analogy would be, if an alien caught you swimming, then keep you in a fish tank, full of water. The reason was, the alien indeed and in fact, caught you in the water.



Now back to your situation. If your snakes do not hide, then you are keeping them in conditions so foreign to their behavior, they do nothing normal. Just lay there.



Also the term "hide" is horrible and misleading, its a petshop term and has nothing to do with snakes/reptiles. ITS A PRODCUT.



Snakes live in and seek shelters. They have home shelters that they return to on a consistant basis, they have temporary shelterst that they use part time. They have winter shelters, spring shelters, summer shelters, nesting shelters, etc.



They seek shelthers to protect themselves from predators, heat, cold, dehydration, to much water, etc. They seek shelters to socialize with others of a like species. Or they seek shelters with other species of reptiles.



In the most serious of discriptions, they seek shelters for SECURITY. To feel safe and sound, to relax, to be at HOME. Hence the term, HOME SHELTER. Such shelters are burrows, cracks, crevices, hollows, etc. Some are found, some are made by the animal. To have to provide a shelter means you have not supported the individual to do what is natural, to make its own.



This should be mandatory understanding, before anyone is allowed to keep a reptile. Sorry, but thats what I believe.



Now that you should understand that, you can understand why they don't seek shelters in captivity.



To be absolutely truthful, most captives that belong to ALL of us, are insane. That is, they do not behave in a manner normal to that species or individual. Insanity is abberant behavior, non normal. etc. Insanity does not have to be deleterious. That is, it does not need to be harmful to the individual, but it often is.



Another analogy is a human serving a life sentence in solitary confinement. When that individual chooses to only sit in a chair and stare out, for the rest of his life. While that is insane, its realitively normal for the set of conditions that human is in.



So, while all normal wild or captive snakes should and do seek shelters, its realitively normal for captives that have nothing to live for to do.



Also in reality, many keepers choose to call their cages, hmmmmmmmm cages, when in fact, they are nothing more then a shelter. In those type cages, there is no LIVING area or areas that support the normal behavior of those individual snakes. Those are NOT cages, they are indeed a BOX.



Now consider, with all living beings, humans and reptiles, behaviorally speaking, if you take away the stimulus to live, they shut down or choose to NOT LIVE. YOU do not have to take away everything, just enough to cause a behavioral shut down.



Now for the good part, that choice is yours to make, your in control and its your choice as to what you want to provide for your captives. You are the warden to those prisoners.



If your happy with animals that have behaviorally shut down, then go for it. Its yours to do. Sadly I cannot say Cheers at the end of this post



p.s. for d mong, and friends, I did not mentions or say the word, bonding or the term groups. hahahahahahahaha

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