Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everybody,
I have a ten year old ball for whom I recently made a wooden, polyurethane sealed hide box. I use it for the warm side of his enclosure to replace the shoe boxes that frequently required replacement. My problem is that he now avoids the warm side, which used to be his preferred hang out spot, in favor of the cardboard hide on the cooler side. the polyurethane still emits a slight odor, but its harmless and id think he would get used to it by now. Any ideas on this one? hide box is approximately same size as a shoe box. i washed it to remove any excess polyurethane.
thanks

You are talking about an animal that can hunt it's prey in complete darkness utilizing only it's sense of smell and it's heat pits.

Trust me, if you can smell it, he can definitely smell it. A slight odor to you could be overpowering from his viewpoint.

Take the hide out of his enclosure and allow it to completely off-gas for another couple weeks before trying it again.
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Stay United!

"...I say 'apparently' because despite all our progress she is not at all a tame or handle-able snake and gettting her from that cage would re-start a war.. and we've had a good armistice for several months now."-Gus Rentfro - I love this quote!

If they don't like the hide, they won't use it.

I've had this happen before as well. If the snake doesn't like it, they don't like it.

And as the previous reply said, if you can smell the polyurethane, you can bet it's pretty overpowering to the snake.
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"We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words."
- Anna Sewell (1820-1878)