Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well Its finally happened to me a snake has broken free ! Ive always been very careful but my prized female Outer Banks King is loose. I turned my house upside down 3 times for 5 hours last night but to no avail. I did find a snake turd on the carpet as if to taunt me and say goodbye . Im thinking the snake found its way outside or into the walls but I really dont know how it could the vents are quarter inch slits and this snake is 3' long.I even looked in the basement but that would be a real long journey turned the stove upside down and the fridge checked in the top of my closets even. Im pretty sure this snake is long gone. Just thought I would share and remind folks to make sure their enclosures are secure.

Regards

Keith

Don't lose all hope yet, I had a 4ft corn return after a month.

Keith,

I'm sorry she made a dash for it, but I still think there's hope. Everytime one of my big EC females made it out (that's three time in three years), I've found her in the back of the floor of the closet and once at the bottom of the bathroom garbage can.

I'm sure she'll turn up, just give it some time.

Carl

Don't worry.
I've had small juvie Kings and Y/T Cribos escape, stay missing for a couple of months and I always find them.
I would tear the entire house apart and most times I wouldn't find the escapee.
Then I'd find a crap on the rug, usually still wet and I'd know that the snake was still in the house and most likely close by.
I'd always find them creeping or hiding not too far from the area where the crap was.
They have to be very hungry at that point and come out of hiding to search for food.
I had a 31", $700, Y/T Cribo slide into a hole in the floor where the forced hot water pipe comes up from the landlords bedroom and into the wall! I thought for sure she'd be lost for good or killed by the witch downstairs!
A 28" female high red/orange Brooksi escaped to who knows where!
Both were gone for about 2 months.
I found the Cribo in a book shelf behind the books and the Brooksi was in a closet climbing over some shoes.
She'll turn up!

Good Luck
Bobby

I've only lost one snake that I never found. That was back in 1996. Recently I lost a baby cal king in November and found him in January. And then 2 months ago I lost a creamsicle holdback only to find it a month later. And I never found a loose snake by looking for it immediately after the escape; they always show up later.

Please let us know WHEN, not if you find her

Kerby...

You will very likely find it. I have had probably 20 snakes escape over the last 25 years or so and have found all but one that I can remember. I once found a rainbow boa that had escaped 14 months earlier.

Try looking around at night with a flashlight. Turn off the lights, give the snake time to come out and start cruising and then search. They tend to crawl along walls more than out in the middle of the room.
Also, listen. Kingsnakes are big clumsy snakes. They tend to knock stuff over as they crawl around.
Look for stuff knocked off shelves, etc as evidence of recent visits.
Don't forget to look all over the house. I once had a 4 foot black milk get out and disappear from my snake room at the very back of the house. About 2 weeks later, I found him in the snake room and thought nothing of it. Then I found a freshly shed skin in my cabinets in the kitchen at the other end of the house! He had quite the little tour.
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Chris Harrison

Keith, sorry to here.

Chrish has a good point. Big clumsy snakes make noise.

I had a 6-year-old Cal King decided to take a walk one day. I Turn the house inside out, no luck. I set up early warning devices.

I took several soda cans (empty) balanced one on top the other (two high)in a couple of areas in the house. I positioned the cans up against the wall with a small rock in the top (soda) can. A few nights later with the lights out while in bed I heard one of the cans hit the floor. I ran out and checked. Back in the cage with you, your walk is over….Good Luck….Dann.

Good luck and hoping she turns up soon.
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Tim

Since switching to Neodesha and clear storage bins that lock, I haven't lost one. But I lost them all the time with critter cages and screen lids (for reptiles, yeah, right) on aquariums. In Florida, my neighbor found a cornsnake that found its way into his garage 3 months later. But the best was in NY. Lamenting the lost Maggie, I went to the local pet store to get a mouse for my other snake. Alas, Maggie was in prison there. She was found by the folks below me, who called the cops, who turned her over to the petstore. All this to say, as others already have, don't give up hope, but I've only found missing ones when least expected.

Good luck,
Andy

Sorry to hear that. I have lost an annulata and he was never found. Good luck finding her. It looks gorgeous
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Zach Lim
Carnivorous Plant Grower and Herper
http://www.geocities.com/sf_snakes/index.html

Sorry to hear Keith, I'm with everybody else. Don't give up hope. I lost a neonate Cal-king once and found him 5 months later in the rafters of my basement. They always seem to turn up when you least expect them too. Good Luck!!!

Ace
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Ace

keep looking, every day. I don't think she will go far. Don't give up I Know you've been working hard with the OBK's.
-Dave

I really feel for you. I had badly wanted a 50-50 cal king, and since I tend to get the majority of my kings fom Kerby, I waited until he had a perfect one, and bought one from him. She was absolutely stunning. My hubby named her Jailbird. We put her in a reptile cage... a newly bought sliding screen top 10 gallon. Fed her a pinkie. Gave her some time to acclimate, and then went to find her only to tear apart the entire cage and discover she was missing. Finally we noticed that there was a notch on the lid of the cage designed for a cord to pass through the lid. We hadn't noticed it. This was back in November of last year. She was one of our most expensive snakes, and one of our prettiest. Aside from a single recently shed skin I found in the mouse room in March, I've seen nothing of her. The main hope I still have is that I will find her in a month when we pack everything up and move. I lose enough hopper mice in the mouse room that I'm sure she's eatin good, not to mention the house geckos who believe that the mouse room is their terrain. And the baby anoles from our anoles who are in a cage that babies can get out of but not adults. So hopefully she is still here. But we only have until the middle of next month to find her before we abandon this house completely. I just feel bad because she was one of the prettiest kingsnakes I've ever had the fortune to own.
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~Sasheena

Ground Snakes: Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple; JCP: Dreamer; Rosy: Castle; Kings: Cali Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates; Blotched Pandora, Phantom; AZ Mtn. Lady; Corns: Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes; Tiger Amulet

I didn't know that you lost the 50-50

But with moving means clearing everything out and I bet you will find it then.

Kerby...

Yeah, I really hope we find her. We've even intentionally let geckos go in the mouse room in case she wanted to find them and eat them. The geckos have never been seen again. All of our lizards are in the mouse room, and we often have spilled crickets, so there is enough food and water for the population of geckos that live in and out of the mouse room. Hopefully she'll turn up.

This thread was fresh in my mind when my step-son Eliot suddenly yelled "Escaped Snake" from the mouse room. We all ran in there and I was hoping beyond hope that it was our little Jailbird. It wasn't. Instead it was Bishop, our high-white. The lid was still secure, and we were baffled. We put him back in his cage thinking he must have just forced the lid back enough to get out. A few minutes later Eliot said "I know how the snake got out, there's a hole in the back of the glass!"

Again we went out there, discovering that the snake was gone, and he'd forced out a small plug on the side designed for various electronic equipment I suppose. I am not sure why it's there on our reptile enclosure. But he'd popped it out. Luckily he's a bit bigger than a neonate, and I found him in the mouse bedding.
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~Sasheena

Ground Snakes: Kit, Kaboodle, Tantilla, Tantillas, Lightning, Kinkee, Maple; JCP: Dreamer; Rosy: Castle; Kings: Cali Licorice, Bishop, Queenie, Jester, Tigris, Euphrates; Blotched Pandora, Phantom; AZ Mtn. Lady; Corns: Aphrodite, Athena, Hermes; Tiger Amulet

Keith, do you raise your own mice? I ask because I've found snakes in my mice from time to time, although only one was an escapee. Still, I feel the getula's desire for a fresh meal will bring her out. Use a "box in a box" with the live mouse in it and see if you can bring her out with that. Good luck! Mark

.

i lost a kingsnake once, looked everywhere for it, turned up in the basement about 3 months later with no ill affects.

Keith,

I have had one snake escape before and we never found him, it was a captive bred gartersnake hatchling. I belive that my brother was responsible for his escape that day he was the only one home with the snake. Keep on looking shes bound to show up somewhere.

john

This is not about finding , but like most lost snake stories
it's funny , I have this buddy who I’ve know for years , he had
a ball python which was about four foot at the time .
and man I swear this guy would lose that snake every week! it was
so funny, we would be there watching TV or something and then
here would come this huge python head come crawling over the TV
ha ha ha man that dumb a... would get up real fast cussing and hollering and screaming at the snake, like it was the snakes fault? one time we found the snake in the kitchen cabinets wrapped around and apparently trying to kill a cereal box!
and yes again that guy would get up real fast cussing and hollering and screaming at the snake, he clearly should not have
a snake and I talked him into selling it. but I think snakes are
smarter than most folks think , because it always seemed like to me that the snake was making fun of his incompetence!
the snake is good now and well taken care of.......but i'm sure
you will find the beautiful
king snake!
D

My black rat escaped his hibernation box in my basement last november and I found him down there this april! I spent countless hours down there looking for him.I even went down there at nights and shined a cordless spotlight. Now where did a 6' snake hide?Heck my teenage son has his bedroom down there and my wife does 3 loads of laundry in the basement everyday.Good news is I found him in time for him to shed, (he was in the blue when I found him)feed on two rats,and breed my amel. female.She is now in her pre-lay shed.Keep looking.Don't give up.And I hope you find your king.

hey keith im a proud owner of half a pair of outter banks its a bummer but both of my OBs escaped 1 recovered 1,i believe the female they are 02s im looking for a male 02 or 01 or 03 of the 4 snakes ive had escape 2 were OBs thats out of 50 colubrids in 02-03 season OBs are Houdinis excuse the spelling. Chris in Miami