Hey, I have asked this question within the midst of my other posts but this problem is just getting worse. Perhaps it will solve itself as time goes on but right now it's not doing any good.
I have included a picture of what I am talking about here, which I will refer to below:
Ok, you can see two lines, a green one and a red one. The green one is the path I built out of shelves, grids etc. etc. that I intended the ig to use to get to the ground and back up, and to access the other shelves. I only ever saw it climb that path, and only halfway, once, which was when it first moved in, and started exploring after 2 days. He doesn't use it anymore now that there is nothing "new" about it. In fact, he seldom ever uses any other shelves, if ever, other than the basking shelves.
The red line is the path that he uses to climb UP to the basking platform. Notice I say up only, I will expand on that later. This is after I PLACE him on the floor, either poops in the blue spot first, or goes straight to that corner on the floor, and darts up, squeezing between the shelves and the walls, and then jumps horizontally over to the baskng platform, where you see in in the photo.
THe blue spot on the bottom is where he USED to poop by choice. I would hear rumbling and climbing on the walls/mesh, and when I enter the room I would see it jump down from one of the platforms and poop there before going back up via the red path. I do NOT ever see it doing that now anymore. It started pooping in its food one day, and I changed to a smaller bowl and it stopped. But ever since it has chosen to poop up top unless I put him on the floor.
The blue spot is also where it poops if I handle him, take him around the house, hang out with him in front of a heater (he doesn't like warm water immersion, he likes warm AIR). He will usually poop immediately after handling and warming in front of the heater. I would PUT him on the floor, and that's where he poops.
The purple area is where he poops now when he poops by himself. Sometimes because he poops before I handle him, and also he poops a second time in the afternoon. ALWAYS there up top nowadays.
I am concerned that since he doesn't use the intended paths for climbing, that perhaps he has difficulty getting down? Or perhaps it is more taxing and it is lazy? Do igs find it more taxing to climb down than up?
I don't mind cleaning, as I now put newspapers up there too. So cleaning is easy. But the lack of exercise and the thought that it may have problems climbing DOWN concerns me. As well as the fact that if I don't notice straight away, it may end up getting itself dirty.
It always used to poop in the blue spot, climbing down by itself. Now it will only do so when I put him on the floor. When I enter the room nowadays, unlike before, 100% of the time he is on the platform. ALWAYS.
I ran through some possibilities in my head:
1) Floor too cold. So I raised the temperatures to see for a couple days. It didn't work at all.
2) Putting food on lower levels. He won't eat more than 2 BITES even if I carry him down and PUT him there before he runs back upstairs. If I don't put him there, the food just rots. He went 4 days like this and I am not going to try that again. He usually eats two bowls per day, put in in two separate times.
3) It is hard to climb down vertically than up. Maybe?
4) I did, at one point, move the humidifier on a higher shelf. It used to spray lower. But all it did was make a mist on the lower floor level and the upper ones were all dry. The newspapers on the floor were always soaking wet and some started to grow fungus, and the top levels would be dry. So I raised it to a higher shelf. Could the high humidity he making it think it should poop up top? The humidifier is outside the cage by the way.
