Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, 1st time posting here. My roommate went abroad for the semester and asked me to take care of his ball python Eulogy, which has been pretty easy. However, I came home from work today to find the snake wasn't in his cage. I looked online at this site:

http://www.kingsnake.com/ballpythonguide/

and I'm following his advice. Searched the apartment high and low and haven't found him. We got a dead mouse and dragged it along the baseboards, and now we have the mouse in the living room in a cardboard box with a small hole cut in it and his heating rock inside the box as well.

Is there anything else I should be doing?

Thank you so much for any help you can provide!
-Brendan

Snake escapes are always tough...
The only real advice I can give is check all the obvious places aka dirt laundry piles, baseboard heaters etc...
but also check the places you'd least likely find them.
If you think they can't get in there, chances are they got in there.

Cain escaped twice. Once I found him chillin' on the Christmas lights I had on my door...
and the second time I found him curled up UNDER his tank. Haha.
I guess he decided he wanted to get up close and personal with his heating pad.

Damien escaped ONCE, and I found him under my pillow...simply by going to bed. Haha.

So check everywhere and anywhere.
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-Man fears the beast in the Wolf because he does not understand the beast within himself.

what he said...and re-check the same places again routinely.

Some tin cans set up at corners in the house can be helpful at night(sure does bring you out of a sound sleep though!).

Some people say they have used flour on the floor to track them down as well.

...be sure to lock your doggie door too. lol
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Charles Glaspie

Tanstaafl:
"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch".
An acronym created by my favorite author Robert A. Heinlein.

I have had only one bp escape, and she didn't go very far, she was in the closet next to her tank in the corner. Check everywhere, if the snake is getting ready to shed there is a good chance it will go under the sink where it is dark and humid. I had a kingsnake escape last year and couldn't find it for a couple of MONTHS. I had chalked her off as a loss figuring she had escaped the apartment all together. One night after the snake had been missing for nearly three months my girlfriend said she found the snake...in the bathtub. I don't know how she got in there, she was only just over a foot long, and she couldn't get back out of the tub. A couple of months after that I found two perfect snake sheds underneath a board under my kitchen sink. So you might have to wait awhile, but don't give up hope, the snake will show up eventually. Make sure you cover the space under all your doors with a towel so it can't get outside, and don't bother sprinkling flour all over the floor, I did it a few times for the ks and it doesn't work. -J.

My roommate actually found Eulogy poking his head out from under the stove early this morning, but only the head was exposed so he couldn't grab him. An hour later he was just laying on top of the stove, but somehow my roommate wasn't able to get a good grip on him (he's a little scared of the snake but he tried) and he slithered into a hole under the dishwasher. So at least, thank God, he's alive, and still in the apartment. I'm gonna pick up a live mouse after work to try to coax him out, hoping that works - he didn't go for the dead one when it was right in front of him.

And I will DEFINITELY be putting some tin cans around the kitchen.

Thanks so much for the help!
-Brendan

To look up, bookshelves & such....

I've had 2 escapes, once we found it under the cook stove by the pilot & the other time we found it by my grandsons toy box where he blended in quite nicely(Albino)
A friend of mine found his under his TV.
Don't give up the flour on the floor trick, just because it didn't work for one don't mean it won't work for you.

Something I always thought would be good to try is bring the house temps down of a night, he WILL find a heat source & you can try putting a heat pad down with a hide on top.