Reptile & Amphibian Forums

are those cheap plastic trays used to catch excess water in the gardening center OK (non-toxic) to use as hides?

I surely hope so...case I have about 200 of them in my cages where they have been for a couple of years...

The only gripe I have is the little lip on the bottom which was apparantly custom designed to store snake poo...

good to hear. was thinking about filling that lip with silicone or something to reduce sharp edges and being tipped. cut the lip off tray 1 then made an entrance hole in it. stack with tray 1 upside down, put small holes in each side, and twist tied them together through small holes so I can remove snake if necessary.
nice deal with cornsnakes is I can pick him up in his hide and he'll probably stay there while cage is cleaned etc.

|¯¯¯¯¯| tray 1

|_____| tray2.

I think they’re great. Only drawbacks I could mention are that they are a little flimsy and the upturned lip is an absolute urate/feces magnet. Of course, the flip side of “flimsy” is that it is super easy to cut clean access holes in these saucers with a utility knife. And you just can’t beat the price.

-Joan

those are the ones. a second one would be underneath it but right-side up forming a cave instead of nested. cut lip off top to fit in better then drilled small holes and twist tied them together. The valley of the lip would be facing down and not likely to hold waste. Keep forgetting how small a space they can curl up into. The ones I have now are 7 inches in diameter but may go even smaller and/or partially fill it with substrate. Setting up a new tub right now and will try them after heat is checked.

Oops - I meant to post my response under your original post. But while we're on the subject of hide containers with a top and bottom - as you can see to the left of the saucer, I use regular rubbermaid-type containers for that purpose, fill it with whatever substrate, then cut a hole in the lid. In this case, the box with the white lid functioned as a nest box for a gravid python.

The same concept works great when you have a nervous or aggressive animal - you can lift the box with animal out of the cage and attend to either cage or snake with reduced stress for you or it.

-Joan

"I use regular rubbermaid-type containers for that purpose, fill it with whatever substrate, then cut a hole in the lid. "

always making things harder for myself, should've thought of that.
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