Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well I am hopeing someone out there has some new or better advice. Our baby albino california kingsnake went missing 3 days ago. I have tried the flower thing but most of my house is carpeted, He still eats pinkies and it has now been 6 days since he ate and we usually feed him every 5 days that is what I was told to do. I am about to give up looking for him but I am really worried can he go without food or is it more likely that he will die in the house? We have a ball python to but he never gets out and we have had him 8 months this is the 2nd time this snake has escaped the first time he just came crawling across the living room floor 2 days after he disapered. Please let me no if any body has any advice...

Well fed snakes can go months without eating. You can try to make a trap out of a 1 liter soda bottle. Wash it out. Cut the top 2/3rds off neatly. Flip it around, so that the neck goes into the bottle. Tape it on. You can put a live pinky in there, and just maybe this will work. You can even make a few of them. Put them in corners or along edges of walls. Somehow making the warm couldn't hurt either. Good luck and keep us posted. Derek

Plastic shopping bags placed behind furniture can be great. If the snake crawls across them at night when it is quiet, then you will hear it. Glue traps can also work, and once found you can use olive oil to get the glue off. Some people don't like the glue traps though. I have never seen the point of the flower thing. Great you know the snake was in this room... OK??? Anyway.
Good luck.

Jason

First of all..Good Luck! I hope you find him.
I have nothing to add really about finding/trapping him but I will say that in more than a few instances, people have found their little ones hiding in a shoe in a closet. Why? I have no idea, but it's worth looking over and over again I guess.
:Mark
-----
Surrender Dorothy!

www.crimsonking.funtigo.com

Usually start out checking the warm places in the house (If its cool in your area). Most of all dont give up. Last March I had a thayeri escape and was not found. We have three cats and after a couple of weeks of it not turning up I assumed that one of the cats must have got it. Last week my son was in the crawl space getting out some old boxes and there was the thayeri crawling on the concrete wall. Unhurt and looking quite good. I wondered how it had managed to stay alive through the winter and no food.Found out later when it pooped and saw the remnants in the stool.
Moral of the story though is dont give up. Best of luck finding it.
-----
www.Wood-N-Snakes.com

The people should not fear thier government,
Their government should fear the people.

About 5 years years ago I had a nice Thayeri (since given to someone else) who as a baby escaped once in our unfinished basement full of plastice containers with all sorts of toys, etc. and many places to hide. Several weeks went by, just about gave up and then found him in the Star Wars bucket of toys. Should have learned my lesson (with ensuring the screen lid had 4 clips vs. 2) and a year later he escaped again, this time for close to 3 months before I found him close to the furnace, down inside the sump pump (which probably helped keep him alive as it had some water in it). Unfortunately, he was badly burned going through the furnace or perhaps squeezing through some super tight spot, maybe even on his way out under the screen lid, and his backside was raw and in bad shape. I recall some good advise here on the forum allowed me to bring him back to health (bacitracin, slightly warmer temps, smaller meal sizes, etc.)and this is how he looked after about a year later and he'd at least doubled his size. Wish I'd kept him, what a nice easy-going snake he was, especially after what he had gone through. They're tough animals that's for sure, and as was mentioned not worth giving up. I'd keep looking especially in warm areas such as around a furnace, and if you have any things your snake can crawl into and hide like mine did, give these areas a closer look. Best of luck. Jim