I have a rack, as seen below, with tubs in it. Yesterday, I hear babies, the mother (our subject) has them at the very back of the tub, and is over them, so I need to pull the tub completely out of the rack to get her off of them to view how many and how many days old they were. After I pulled the tub, she (our subject, the mother) gets VERY freaked out, runs from side to side of the cage with great acceleration. She looks over the edge, actually climbs the edge, which is unusual for my adult rats to do. I lift the cage from about 4' to 5.5' to dissuade her from "taking the jump" to the cement garage floor, as my hands were full from holding the tub at the time.
Well, she jumped, the first time an adult rat has ever jumped on me at all. I lay the tub on the ground (with 3 other adults and one juvie in it) to grab her before she clears the 5' to her miserable freedom in my semi-cluttered garage floor. She's frantic and very fast, and gone by the time I lay the tub gently on the floor, back behind our tomato stick pile in the corner, where I could not find her w/ a flashlight.
This chaos happened in a very short amount of time. From the time everything was 100% cool till the rat was 100% escaped was between 5 and 10 seconds, not enough for me to react without comprimising the other 3 adults and the substrate and catching her both.
Here is the sweet part. I install a new thermostat in my truck, spill antifreeze on the floor, and intentially leave it as rat poison, as I hear it makes for an effective dog poison. I also lay a peanut butter rat trap and conventional rat poison. I don't want her to chew on my refrigerator, auto-watering system, or motorcycle. After my futile 5min search in the possible places she could be, I give up. Fast Forward 24hrs. Trash day, I pull out the car on the opposite side of the rat rack wall. When I get out of the car, she is underneath where the car was, quite calm. I grab her without much of a fight, she is alive, but not by too much. I put her in a bin by herself to "quarentine" and to view her. She walks about a little, but is slow and her eyes are only 3/4 open. She rests with her feet to the side and not under her. Fast forward 30min. past her capture, she is in worse condition, eyes almost closed, feet out like she is dead.
I realise she is poisoned from either the anti-freeze that was on the floor or the conventional stuff, and isn't going into my Carpet Python. She is currently on the curb in a bag (thoroughly dead from conventional methods) waiting to be picked up tomorrow morning by the trash guy.
This is sweet to me as two months ago I had an escape of a juvie of about 4 weeks that was very fast. I never recovered him, but saw and attempted to capture him 2, 3, and 5 days after his escape.
No real moral, just be careful with usually placid adults, and perhaps make a more foolproof system to prevent escape, or just lay down anti-freeze for escapees, as it appears to be effective.
Also, I did find a good home for the babies, my yearling Desert Kingsnake took them the night of the escape, there were only four.
Cheers
Jon
