An escape!

[alan12013]

One of my ball pythons escaped on me! I saw him as he slithered into the only place to hide in my entire house. My bedroom closets are raised off the floor level because there are built in drawers at the bottom and on each side at the bottom there is a hole that appears to go all the way to the back and runs between the back closet wall and the end of the shelving unit. I HOPE TO _____ that there is no way he can get into the neighbors as I am in a condo unit. I'm not sure if I should tell the neighbors as no one knows I have snakes. I can't believe this happened and at midnight when I have to be up and out of my house in 4 hours. I might just start ripping the closet out but that will be a very serious project. Any ideas?

[alan12013]

I love my snakes! It was actually one of my adult females named Rosie. I left to the store for some energy drinks to help me power through the night and Rosie came on out of hiding and let me pick her up and put her back in her home! Whew!!! I was going to attempt to make the closet space cold while luring her out with a F/t rat. I over reacted.

[jasonmcgilvrey83]

Glad u got her back. It's always scary when they excape

[pmarks]

I have had a few escapes in my life but have managed to find them all. One time my 19 ft retic got out and knocked over my rack of baby balls but all were recovered after I calmed down and stopped panicking.

[MrLang]

What is the enclosure you keep her in?

[alan12013]

She's in a 41qt sterilite but since I am new to this hobby and still feeling it out I own a cheap 90ish dollar metal shelving units that I keep the tubs on. I have the spacing just high enough where I can lift up the lid and peek in for any surprises that I will need to take care of without having to take the tub completely out. I must not have sealed the front and back of the lid. I wish I had more experience too because I think this girl is gravid or ovulating. Ever since I got her I keep caching her laying on her side or in strange positions. It does look like there are eggs in there too. I recently made the decision that I'll properly inspect her but I will wait until tomorrow as I don't want to stress her out even more so soon. This was the first accident that's happened to me and my animals but I am starting to see how seriously I need to take this. Between an escapee and the BP plague going around.

[luxuriouswhite]

Wow good thing you got her back!

One time there was a bad power outage from a storm and my generator was not working. So i had to bring my snakes back to my parents house so i could keep them warm. I made a rack and use steralite tubs so i just took the lids and slapped them on and took my space heater with a t-stat back to my rents. Set everything up and got temps real nice for the snakes. Well what i didn't realise is i didnt clamp the lid on one of the tubs and my lemon blast female ended up getting out. I found out the next day it got out and i searched for hours and hours and hours with no luck. 5 days later my mom calls me and she finds it in the old spare bedroom filled with stuff across the house from where the tubs were and it was hiding under some clothes!! The temps in the house were around 65 degrees upstairs and the snake was fine! No RI or nothing. I brought it home and it ate the next feeding day. Very lucky. Had just paid $700 for her 2 weeks before this happened. Thank god my mom found her and she was okay. Just felt like sharing sorry for intruding on ur thread

[alan12013]

Wow glad you found her and she was still healthy! That would've been my concern is that she would be hurt or critically injured some how. I can't imagine a retic that big getting out. I'm glad you found all the BP babies but that must have been a pretty stressful situation. For me I have to watch what I do pretty closely the particular lot of condos that I'm in is on a little strip of land between Oregon and Washington on the Columbia river called Hayden Island or Jantzen Beach and it's pretty much all retired people who stare out their window all day and report to each other about the other neighbors so I'm already the odd one out. I'd rather not have them know I have snakes, and if one were to escape outside :/

[bcr229]

Let's see...
Had one BP get out of her tank (back before I had racks) twice. Couldn't figure out how she did it. Found her after a few hours in my daughter's bed, put her back, found her halfway out of the tank shortly afterward. She had learned that she could push the top up and escape, and was making attempt #2. She was put back and the top weighted down so she couldn't succeed again, and my husband had a rack built within a week.

One California king snake has escaped twice. The first time he was found a few hours later hiding under the laundry hamper, the second time he was deep in a speaker and while we could see him, we couldn't reach him. No worries, we thawed a mouse and enticed him out. Fortunately kings are always ready for a meal!

Our Mexican Black king escaped once. My dear daughter (DD) found her before we knew she was gone. That conversation went something like this:
- DD: I think Shadow got out.
- Me: Why???
- DD: Because she's hanging from the light switch in my bedroom.
Yeah Sherlock... that's what we call a clue.

Then there's my male 2012 BRB. For whatever reason his tub wasn't pushed all the way into the rack after it was cleaned. He made use of about a 1/2 inch gap to make his escape. It took several weeks and us leaving a combo water bowl & hide for him on the floor of the snake room, but I walked in one day to find him getting a drink. I let him finish, scooped him up, put him into his tub (making sure that it was pushed all the way in this time!), and thawed a feeder for him since he'd missed three meals. He was quite happy to eat.

[T_Sauer]

Figured I'd go ahead and share one of my "Ironic" escape stories .... I have all ball pythons but my g/f had to have this one spotted python we came across one time we went to the pet store for feeders. So we got her and not even a week later she made quick work of her split hinged double door lid on her tank (she was so small I never had the thought that she could reach the top of the tank let alone push the top up) .... Needless to say I was wrong , my g/f cried herself to sleep that night because we looked everywhere and could not find her tiny defenseless lil baby girl. Luckily before I went to bed that night something told me to take a look around the room one more time , and I found her coiled up on the floor on my g/f's side of the bed beside a shoe. We went and got lid clips the very next day.

BUT WAIT!!!! THAT IS THE FIRST TIME SHE ESCAPED .... NOW FOR THE STORY OF THE "IRONIC/EPIC" ESCAPE!

So we are at the same pet store getting feeders again, my g/f is placing our order of feeders and I have my back turned looking at husbandry items. When I hear my g/f say "What the .... " I pay lil to no mind I just assume a cricket jumped on her as we were right beside the cricket bin and you know how them lil boogers are everywhere at a pet shop. Then I hear her say " OMG HOW DID YOU GET IN THERE!" So I turn and look and to my suprise my g/f is holding her spotted python that had just crawled out of her purse and onto her arm! Yes , the same spotted python we had just put lid clamps on her cage two months before! Ironically it was the same pet store we had gotten her from and the same one we went and told them the story of the first escape as we were purchasing the clamps! .... Turns out that when we fed her two days before my g/f didn't get one of the clamps snapped on all the way. So needless to say there is now a routine nightly check to make sure she is in her cage and all clamps are secure LOL