AWOL Snake was Found!

[pretends2bnormal]

Back in December, I bought a fantastic gray banded kingsnake. Super docile and not at all a problematic feeder (unlike what I've heard some people say). We had Ash for about 1 shed and 3 meals before we went in to check him and found him completely missing in mid-January. Pretty shocking since we had kept and grown out a corn snake in the exact same bin with no escapes that had started at half his weight (6g vs the king's 12g). We honestly still don't know how he got out. Holes were less than half his head size, no gaps along the top of the bin (very tight shelf on that diy rack), and the bin was not pushed too far back or left open at all.

Pic:


Anyway, he went missing on January 11th weighing only 12 grams. By March when our looking and food/water enticing with flour lines at doorways failed, we were pretty sure he either escaped the house or had died (dehydration, not starvation). He was very small and I had thought lack of water would have done him in honestly.

Today, we were working on cleaning up our game room to swap things around and set up a reptile room there and found a shed while vacuuming. We thought it was odd. It was too small for most of our snakes, and the ones it wasn't too small for had been fed earlier today and had never been in that room. Nor had any trash bags broken open for it to just be an old shed... it had to be our missing snake!

Sure enough, about 1 foot from there when we picked up this leather cube side table, we found a very very skinny but ALIVE Ash. Picked him up, set him up in a lidded bin with holes a fourth as big (aka TINY, smallest drill bit in the set we have) and binder clipped the non latching sides together. He is NOT escaping us again.

Here he is today, getting a well deserved and much needed drink:


We went ahead and offered him the smallest pinky we had, so he's got that in his belly in the above pic. His head is unfortunately very noticeable from his neck which isn't good proportions for a king. And looks quite skinny overall. Don't have a good shot of that head and I'm letting him settle and digest now.

I think he'll pull through as long as he doesnt regurge this first meal. He's still acting quite normally, took the food straight off the tongs, and went to take a big drink.

For anyone else that loses a snake, especially a small one, they really do have a way to surprise you long past when you think they can be found alive.

Ours even had a nearly perfect shed after months being missing (head part was torn off of the body, but otherwise completely intact). I thank our several fishtanks bringing up ambient household humidity. (Most rooms read 40-50% with hygrometers despite being in North Texas)

I'll post updates as he recovers from his months of hiding in our house.

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