omg.. my first escape, help!

Ahhh! Constantine escaped her tub for the first time in the 3 years I've had her. I've never made this mistake before but I left one of the latches open when I checked on her last night and she was gone this morning! I keep the snakes on the second floor in my house.... Will she stay contained to the upstairs or will she have ventured down the stairs (which are wooden; no carpet)? I'm trying to think of warm spots she may have escaped to but I can't think of anywhere and I haven't found her yet. There aren't any access points into the walls so I'm hoping that will eliminate some of my search spots.

The doors are usually left open during the night so she could potentially be in any of the rooms, how can I try and lure her out without trying in the wrong room? I'm panicking a little bit and hoping I can find her before I have to alert the household to her escape.

I know its been a while since I've been on here so I apologize; I hope everyone else is well!

I would try putting a live mouse in a clear critter carrier in the center of the room she stays in. I would also try to put a heat lamp over her hide near the mouse. Then you have to hope she shows interest in the mouse and if you don't catch her stalking the mouse hopefully she will find her way into the nice warm hide.

Thanks KMG, I guess my big question is whether or not it is likely that she will attempt to go downstairs; because if that's the case it's gonna exponentially increase the difficulty of the search. Gonna clear the upstairs and then go out and get a mouse... hope I won't have to. :(

Anything is possible but I would say it's a pretty safe bet she stayed upstairs. Most people find their escapees fairly close to the escape point. Just go slow and think like a snake.

I know this might sound silly, but it worked well for me when I was looking for my cornsnake that escaped in August. Try to physically get on eye-level of your snake and look at what you see around you and try to think about (from her position) where she would have slithered off to. It might show you some cracks or openings that you wouldn't necessarily see from above.

Thanks for the input; so far I haven't had any luck despite a lot of time spent on the floor and rummaging through everything. I'm gonna get a live mouse and set it up in the room somewhere overnight and hope she's still in smelling range. I set up a warm hide for her as well. She's pretty chunky so I'm a little concerned that I haven't found her yet.

Since I'm putting the mouse in the room where I keep the snakes, will my other BP get agitated if the mouse is just hanging out in the room? I'll go ahead and feed her a f/t one since its feeding day anyways, but if it takes longer than today to find Constantine I'll just have to make the mouse a little habitat until Constantine gets baited out. Hope thats not the case though...

This might sound funny but place empty cans all over the house or by any heat source. There sneeky and great at hiding. I lost a 9 foot retic once and it took me 7 hours to find her

Holy crap, I finally found her; but I'm shocked that I did! Thanks for the suggestions guys! I had searched everywhere in the house up to maybe 4 feet off the ground, but did not expect to find her where I did. If it weren't for my silent moping on the computer in her room, I wouldn't have heard her crinkling the paper in the closet. Let this be a testament to the fact that BP's can and WILL climb. Ahhh I'm so relieved. Look where I found her:

Make note of the top right corner of the image on the top shelf.... (ignore the pile of stuff that was thrown in here during my hunt)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...psc1f3ee9a.jpg

Heres a zoom of that image
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ps86f6388e.jpg

And under all that crap: "Uh oh... Hi mommy... I wasn't doing anything wrong...."
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...ps3c3dc4ca.jpg

Gosh! She sure picked a good hiding spot, that silly girl!

Be sure to give her a stern talking to ;)
Glad you found her.

I've had one escape(someone messed with my tubs), but luckily he was just behind the tub /phew

Glad you found her safe and sound!

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Glad you found her. Also surprised at where she was found. Haven't had an escapee, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time for almost any owner!

NICE! At least shes safe now

That last picture is adorable :oops: Glad you found her

Yeah they can claimb lol, I know a person that adopted one of my snakes and she gotten out 9 the lady laid upwith her foot in a cast) well after 3 weeks her sone found her upstairs and just coolingo ut under thespare room pillows.

Penny freaked me out the other day while I was changing her subtrate. I let her hang out on the bed and she had a blast slithering in and out of the blankets and all over my laptop...
http://ball-pythons.net/gallery/file.../photo0176.jpg
And then she decided to wedge herself into the cooling pad. Took over half an hour to get her out. You can see in the pic that the cooling pad is open all the way through for the wedge design. And is way too perfect for a hiding spot. Little bugger inflated herself while she was in there to wedge herself even tighter in the space. :rolleyes:

i kept looking for the snake in the closet pics :rofl:

I'm glad you found her! I remember someone else on this forum saying that they learned their ball python escaped because they heard rattling in their closet. They went to investigate and found the snake before she even knew it was missing!

I'm so happy you found her, and I agree with you ball pythons can and WILL climb, once my escape normal was found on top of my dishwasher between the dishwasher and counter top, the only way I found him is I was lucky enough to unscrew and pull out the dishwasher thinking maybe he would be behind it, but nooo he was on top!

So glad that you found your snake! I do however concur, the pictures are just so darn cute of the snake hiding!

congrats!!! this morning i lost my BP.. and still searching until now... btw do they move from upstair to downstair? i have 4 floor, and her cage is in 4th floor... i have to search in every floor :(

Glad you found her!

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