Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So, all of my encolsures have pin locks on it... except one. I never bothered with it because of the way the lid snapped down and in place...

...but to make a long story short, my very first snake (Adam, normal Ball Python) that I have ever owned and raised and absolutely love and trust since a baby escaped last night while we were sleeping along with my new 0 Het for Piebald.

I'm afraid my cat may have already got to them, and I don't want to wait too long in case either of them need immediate medical attention.

We had friends over and we tore the house apart searching for him, and the cat has already been taken to stay at a family members house. We even dug around the dusty crawlspace underneath the house. If anyone has any tips on were escaped ball pythons hide, or if anyone has unusual stories on where they've found their MIA snakes, please share. Adam is a 4 foot long snake; you would thing he'd be difficult to hide. But either way, he is absolutely irreplaceable to me. I don't want to loose him. PLEASE HELP...

ANY SUGGESTIONS APPRECIATED!!!

I have dealt with escapes also it is nerve racking. I to tore everything apart, to only find one where I had cleaned and looked. I have had two and both were not far from there enclosures, the darkest tightest spot possible is where to find them, I have heard some say to use flour on the floor, to see if they come out at night, also set up a temp enclosure with heat and see if they go into that. Best of luck and let us know what happens, I know how heart wrenching it is.

Check under your cabinets. Locate the toe kick which is the bottom of the cabinet. Sometimes when they are installed they only place this flimsy toe kick in place just for aesthetics. It would be very easy for a snake to move. I hope this helps, thats all I could think of. Good luck

flour id put it down around areas you may think they may be and you can tell if they have gone in or out buy the tracks that are left and its safe to use easy to clean up...

a piece of yarn is easier to clean up........lay it out from wall for a foot and see if it moves.......

........look at night with a flashlight........slow ,and quietly
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.....too many BIG girls.........

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they like to hide behind or between the racks / boxes.......and keep the pins in place.....they will push open all the other boxes they can get behind.......

............at times they are right in the rack within a foot of their own........

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.....too many BIG girls.........

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and look every where. I had one of my BPs escape a few years ago. I found him on top of the AC. go figure. Id check close to the enclosure first then work my way out. but stay calm or you could look right past it.
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Dave
Phila, PA

www.DNReptiles.com
Myspace/DNReptiles
Photobucket Album

Like Jeff says, check the rack.

I had one that was curled up in the back of the rack and may have been there for 5-7 days-I think!! He was right by the heat tape, snug like a bug in the rug. I think the summer is a more difficult time to loose them however. Who is to say they will gravitate towards the nearest heat source? If it 30 degrees outside, you would think they wouldnt crawl outside, but in the summer??

I am not trying t get you upset, but I have gone through the same thing a couple times. I would start off by going around the whole house at floor level and make sure there is no way for it to get out of the house, Make sure the doors dont have a large opening at their bottoms. Also, I found a hole where the base board heating pipe went into. The installer must have drill a 1 1/2" hole in the wrong spot, then redrilled it 2" over... You couldnt see it unless you looked behind the cover. I had to patch it up with some sheetrock tape and spackle. I made sure my whole house is as snake proof as I can make it..

Good luck.

~Alan

I've found that you can toss the house a dozen times and not find them - the best way to find them is to wait for them to come out and be found. Snake proof the house including things like doggie doors and bathtub faucets and wait - they will come out.

I've also found that if they escape during the winter they have a tendency to find a safe spot and "hibernate" for the winter. Whereas in the summer they will do their roaming and hunting and are much more likely to be found.

Good luck with the Escapee - hope you find him soon.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

(CJBianco explaining the origins of the BP market.)
"In the beginning Bob created the Ball Python market. And the market was without morph, and wild traits were upon the industry. And Bob said, Let there be morph, and there was morph. And Bob saw the morph, that it was good; and Bob divided the morph from the wild trait. And Bob called the morph Albino, and the wild trait Normal. And the Albino and the Heterozygous Albino were the first investment.
-- Christopher 1:1-1:5"

Flashlight at night is your best bet and I also would inspect very maticulously around the rack.All my escapes were found within 30ft of the rack........Good luck hope you find them soon. Dont give up you will find them.......Seal the room if possible from the rest of the house.

masking tape , face up , across all doorways and anyplace else you may feel appropriate. they'll stick to the tape , and you'll find 'em somewhere at the other end of it.
use long pieces so it'll be easy to locate them after they bed down in their next hide spot.
soak the ex-escapee in water to remove tape , or apply mineral oil to the areas making contact.
good luck in your quest ,
peace , ck

>>So, all of my encolsures have pin locks on it... except one. I never bothered with it because of the way the lid snapped down and in place...
>>
>>...but to make a long story short, my very first snake (Adam, normal Ball Python) that I have ever owned and raised and absolutely love and trust since a baby escaped last night while we were sleeping along with my new 0 Het for Piebald.
>>
>>I'm afraid my cat may have already got to them, and I don't want to wait too long in case either of them need immediate medical attention.
>>
>>We had friends over and we tore the house apart searching for him, and the cat has already been taken to stay at a family members house. We even dug around the dusty crawlspace underneath the house. If anyone has any tips on were escaped ball pythons hide, or if anyone has unusual stories on where they've found their MIA snakes, please share. Adam is a 4 foot long snake; you would thing he'd be difficult to hide. But either way, he is absolutely irreplaceable to me. I don't want to loose him. PLEASE HELP...
>>
>>ANY SUGGESTIONS APPRECIATED!!!

Leave some things out and around that make noise...crinkled soda cans and some plastic bags are really quite loud late at night...You might catch them on the move this way.
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Charles Glaspie

You guys all rock so frikkin hardin my book. I can't belive how many responses I've got and I can't thank you all enough.

I've striped my house a good five times now, and looked in all suggested places. Stove and washer and dryer aren't being used (hooray for laundrymat), and the cat is still away.

I'm setting up open, ventilated cages against random walls with mice all around the house, than putting flour around em to see if I can lure my always-hungry Adam out of the woodwork. The flours also in other places. I've put masking tape in the doorways, and crumpled up plastic bags against most walls and corners as well.

Again thanks for the help!!! And I'll still take any suggestions, and promise to update you if I find him.

Thanks again so much!!

I don't know how your room set up is, but my brother in law had his Boa escape and after 12 hours of searching we ended up finding her in a toy model Hummer H2 coiled inside the car. You may want to check places like that, behind picture frames in the room, books, check to see if anything is pushed forward or knocked down. A couple of days ago someone posted a picture of their snake slithering up where the ceiling tiles and lights were. They are going to be in the last place you expect and I suggest starting at the escape point and look for anything that may have been moved around. Check under dressers inside dressers. I know I'm probably just repeating myself and repeating what others have said. Good luck with Adam!

i once found my 4.5' bci coiled in a 2" d-ring looseleaf binder,
still on the bookshelf, seemingly untouched.
crafty lil' critters.

ck

patience is key. food in the short term is not important but your snake will soon move about looking for water. a few years back, i lost one of my big gals during a home renovation. dust was everywhere, and i could see the skid mark her belly left in the dust when crawling down into a tiny gap left by a newly removed baseboard. she was in the guts of the building and i was beyond freaked. its a big building. i put a heat pad down there hooked it up to an extension chord. a week, two weeks, nothing. then my wife and i had to go away on business. we put the dog in the kennel, the home was perfectly still and she felt safe to crawl about. i found her within two minutes of coming back from that trip, bags still in my hand, there she was coiled against the wall, out in broad daylight. it was a beautiful thing.

Hello,
When I first got into balls,I got 20 small ch females and left to big of gap in my racks (3/16" they were small.I caught all 4 after 3 weeks. All after midnight.2 were on the toilet (looking for water I guess) and 2 were in the hallway.Probably looking for water. Maybe this will help.....James

The flours been down for a few days and finally a disturbance of it all. After going near a place that had been smoothed over I found the Het Pied under the Washer (which we had taken apart 3 times now)... but still no sign of my big guy, my Adam...