On Thursday night, Havana successfully moved back into her hide. I almost had a heart attack walking into the room, because I wholeheartedly expected her to be curled up behind the log in the middle of her tank as she had been for the past two or three weeks. My first thought was that she may have escaped (as she had before when we accidentally left the lid open for an hour while trying to feed her), but I knew in my head that was barely possible, since she was lethargic from being in pre-shed, and since we hadn’t opened that lid in quite a while. I was extremely relieved when I quickly checked for her in her hide, and found her hidden away in the shadows.
I’m still not sure whether the issue was the lighting or the heat, or whether she just didn’t feel like sleeping in her hide. We’d just installed a heat mat for her under her hide when she first stopped using it, probably because she’d never been that warm before. Though it was the perfect temperature for her, her old owner never installed a heat mat for her, so she maybe needed some time to grow used to there being a warmer side in her enclosure. We also put in some more aspen bedding the other day to make it slightly less warm for her, in case it would get her back to sleeping in her hide. That being said, I’ve also rotated the hide so that as little light as possible gets in from the window and from the computer screen, so that may have helped as well. Either way, I’m glad to have her moved back in.
Later that night, at around 5 AM, Thomas woke me to tell me that she had begun to shed, but I was way too tired to get out of bed to take pictures. At least I got some good shots the first time she shed with us. I’ll make sure I’m more well rested the next time her shed comes rolling around, so I can be sure to get up. Hopefully she’ll be eating again long before then; I have a good feeling she will.
