Crisis averted, snake escape/capture

[grizzjr1]

Well, last night I took a trip to pick up some rat fuzzies for Sativa to switch to (he has had two hoppers in my care, both F/T). When I go home at about 8:30 I thawed one out and set it on top of his cage. He shot out of his hide and started flicking his tongue, to me he looked pretty hungry. After about 15 minutes on the enclosure screen I dangled the rat in the cage and he came over towards it, he was looking around for it then moved his head up and bumped it. Of course my snake got afraid rather than hungry and he ran off. So I just set the rat on top of his hide (where I sat the first one I fed him and he at it). I went and laid in bed to watch some TV and wait for him to come out and eat it. Well... I was pretty tired so I must have dozed off. I woke up this morning to check if the rat was still in there, yep, weird? I thought he would eat it for sure. Then I looked a little harder at the enclosure and realized that I left one of the little caps for the feeding holes off, I opened the cage to check if he was in there, nope. I started frantically searching and thought of the fridge so I went to look at it and it was so far up against the wall there was no way anything could get behind it. I kept looking around and realized the size of the crack under my door, about the size of my pinky. Sativa is a pretty small snake so I am confident he can fit under something pretty small, so I ran down the hall way looking for him. No luck. Went back to my room and looked at the fridge and realized there was a small gap between it an the floor. I tipped it sideways and saw a dangling tail coming out of the back. After a few minutes of unwrapping I got Sativa back into his enclosure. I put in a humid hide, took out his log, took off some of the vine leaves that were in there, put sphagnum moss under his other two hides, made sure the temp was good and to raise the humidity (I think he is going into shed) I put a damp cloth over the cage, made sure everything was closed up, and went to work. I am leaving him alone the rest of the day because he is probably stressed out and even hissed at me.

Now, I have a few questions. First off, I think the new feeders I got are too big. My scale isn't here because my cousin is borrowing it, but they are visually pretty large compared to the hoppers I had. They are supposed to be fuzzy rats and look more like weaned to me. I tried to feed him the smallest one last night but obviously had some complications. I threw it back in my freezer separate from the other feeders, can I still try to feed him this one? I have read you shouldn't freeze, thaw, then refreeze but wasn't really sure. It was left in the cage from 9:30 PM last night to 7:30 AM this morning. The last time I weighed Sativa was before I fed him on Sunday, he weighed 74 grams. I will try to pick up my scale from my cousin tonight, weigh him again, and weigh the one hopper mouse I have left along with the new rats. I'm not sure if I will be able to get the scale from him, so I will post some pics of what the old mouse/new rats look like compared to a quarter. If you guys can take some guesses from the pics that'd be awesome. Also, should I attempt to feed him tonight, or will he be too stressed to eat? Thanks for any help in advance. You guys are awesome

[grizzjr1]

Here is pics of his enclosure



Should I put the log I have back in the corner, or is it fine bare?



93 is ambient (turned down the light after the pic because I like it to be about 90-91), 89 is the measurement of the glass above the heat pad (varies from 88-92).



The mouse on the left is the "hopper" I have left (was the smallest of the 3 I had), the rat in the middle is the "fuzzy" I tried to feed him last night (theres maybe one or two more that size in my bag of rats), and the rat on the left is about the average size of the rest of the bag of 10 I got.



Thanks for any help guys!