Hi,

I'm fairly new to royals but several months ago I purchased a 1.5 year old male.

We never once saw him bathe in his normal water bowl (out in the open). So, I wandered the net and after a short search I found a site (which I forget the name of) which recommended offering a water hide in the cool end of your viv.

The easiest way to make a water hide is to black out a tuperware tub, half fill it with water and make a decent sized (at least twice the size of the widest part of your royal) access holes in one side of the lid.

I tried it and though it took him a day or so, Stewie absolutely loves it, he's in there around 30/40% of the time. The added security of being covered seems to give him the confidence he needs to have that good soak.

The other added plus of a water hide is that theres no need for a seperate water bowl so you get a free hide, where your water bowl would otherwise be.

I would also recommend making several 50mm (ish) air holes in the lid to ensure he/she doesn't suffocate.

Otherwise, a fantastic idea.

DS

A great help! Thank you!

Hi, Got my Royal Pyhton today 18/01/09 spent ages setting up the viv then found python was getting cold so put him into viv in his box without the lid on. Next thing he's out of the box scouting around his viv, then back to his box and bed.
I offered him a fuzzy then left it near his hide, he came out several times to push it with his nose next thing he's eaten it! Not bad for a snake that is supposed to be stressed out from travel and eveything being new.
How do you know if a snake is stressed?
This one seemed to spend a lot of time getting as high up as poss.
Shrimpdragon.

hi i got a baby royal in like february and she's quite timid when i pick her up, i was just wandering if tht timidness will go away if i handle her a little bit more frequently so she gets used to it. oh and does anyone have any advice on how often she should be handled

hey in response to shrimp dragon, yeh tht was like mine, we put her in and all she did was like sit there, then before we knew it she was climbing up her fake leaves, it was really great, then she explored the whole viv and went in her hide. the only thing is they get too adventurous and become clumsy, once mine tried to stretch herself too far on top of her branch to get to the leaves, and feel off, but there was nothing to worry about as she only fell a few inches

I made a massive beginers mistake with my male royal by sticking his viv's jungle backing sheet up with gaffa tape, two days later I went in he'd found a small hole to climb through, gotten behind the backing paper and managed to tangle himself up in the tape. Took ages to sort him out.

Advice for any reptile keeper, don't use gaffa tape in their tank if you can help it lol.

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The Dave!
1.1.0 Royal pythons (Pink and Floyd) 1.0.0 Bearded Dragon (Brucie) 1.0.0 Common Boa (Pepper) 1.0.0 Emperor Scorpion (Odin) 0.0.1 Asian Painted Bullfrog (gumba) 1.0.0 GBB (Youra) 0.0.1 g. Rosea (Kidney Bean) 0.0.1 A. Versicolor (Bob) 0.0.1 L. Parahybana (Oden) 0.0.1 N. Chromatus (Bodhi) 0.0.1 P. Ornata (Hera)