Pooping in moist hide?

[Moppel]

Since we changed the tank setup and went from moss to coconut fiber for the moist hide, Camo now poops in her moist hide. Always. Never anywhere else. Her moist hide was always her favorite place to be, but now she usually hangs out in the open. Is she pooping in there because she hates it? Or loves it? Why do they do that?
It causes the most disgusting smell in the moist hide, and I have the hardest time getting that smell out of the container that is her moist hide. I wash it pretty much every day and replace the coco fiber. But man it stinks!

I just wish I knew why she does it. If it's because she likes the new bedding in there I'll just keep washing it I guess, but if it's because she hates it I can switch back to moss, I still have a whole bunch.

Does anyone know?

 

[OnlineGeckos]

Ahh poop in the moist hide, every gecko owner's nightmare. :main_laugh: It's not that they like it or hate it, they just sometimes poop where they see fit. In this case, your gecko feels that's a good spot to make her droppings. It's hard to break their habit once they decide to poop in a spot. Although you could try a few things, such as cleaning it out and moving it to another spot, or scoop a lil bit of it along with her poop, and place it on a papertowel where you want her to defecate at.

I have some geckos that will not break the habit so what I end up doing is to put two moist hides in there, one for the geckos to poop in, one for the gecko to lay in. If you can't break the habit then you may want to think about doing that. If you decide to put another moist hide in there, you could slowly phase the coco fiber out of the "poop hide", and start using paper towels. They smell it and know that's where they want to go, so even if you change the substrate they may still go there. Papertowel is obviously a lot easier to clean up so you can look into doing that once you've established two moist hides and see that she only goes in one.

 

[DrCarrotTail]

I have a few that do the same. I take away their moist hide privileges for a couple of weeks so they establish a pooping locale more to my liking. After they do I put a 100% clean one with new moss/fiber and cross my fingers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't Good luck with yours!

 

[Moppel]

Thanks guys, that's good information! I think it'd be pointless to put another moist hide in her tank though. She is very picky, and this is the only moist hide she'll use. She just loves that thing. Always has. It's not all that big, so I tried giving her a bigger one. She would not set foot in it. I switched back to the old, smaller one, and she immediately got comfy in there again.

It's good to know that she's not upset over the bedding change in there. I will try your suggestions, hopefully something will work.

 

[Gary Orner]

The moist hide is too wet. Make it a little dryer and it will be ok. When it is too moist they choose the hide over anything else.