Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My 9 foot Red Tail came up missing 2 nights ago...I tore the whole apt (read more like a ranch style house but small and with baseboard heat) apart as far as I can think of... looked up and down and still nothing How does a 9 FT snake disappear in a 2 bedroom apt... I dont even think it can leave my apt from the way it is setup....

Any ideas? my last option I think are flour EVERY floor and sticky mouse traps......

This is my only pet and have had her since birth.. 'm really upset about this

Any help would be greatly appreciated

GOOD LUCK
Mike

you'd be suprised at where these guys will end up and where big snakes like that can fit .. i suggest you lookcarefully thru anything and everything .. you will be suprised at where you find her .. trust me ..lol hope all werks out well man , good luck
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NO BEAUTY LIKE THE BEAUTY OF A TRUE REDTAIL !!

I hope she did not go down the toilet. Ok places I have found lost boas befor.
1 in the insulation covering the hot water heater.
2 inside the back of the fridge ( not inside of course)

3 dishwasher

4 pull out the kitchen cabnets (bathrooms too) sometimes there is enough space for the to get under them.

5 In your bed. Not under the covers but actually inside the boxpring or matress.

6 In the garbage

Good luck
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True Redtails

1 in the insulation covering the hot water heater.
the door to the water heater was closed
2 inside the back of the fridge ( not inside of course)
I looked there already

3 dishwasher
Inside or behind it? but i think i looked there as well

4 pull out the kitchen cabnets (bathrooms too) sometimes there is enough space for the to get under them.
I will loook there too

5 In your bed. Not under the covers but actually inside the boxpring or matress.
That was one of the first palces i took apart but to no avail

6 In the garbage
one of the other first places i looked.. at least i picked it up.. it wasnt heavy enough for her to be in there

your gonna think i am nuts, take a feeder, tie dental floss to it, and have about 2 feet of floss tie the other end to a box or 2litre pop bottle so when your snake takes the feeder the box or bottle goes to , you may want a bigger object incase your snake could down the ottle but the point being the box or bottle will be a tracer for you , find your snake cut the floss your good to go floss is biodegradable and i think if they can digest bones from rabbits that bit of floss wont hurt, all the best

She hasn't eaten live in 6 years...... not to mention I'd be very wary of letting a feeder rat run around my apt.. even with a bottle tied to it... I use to feed her 7 lb rabbits... but then she ate one that had a little bloat that i didnt realize.. and she split herself trying to eat it on both sides 8 inches... (she couldn't expand anymore ) anywyas.. she had surgery like 2 months ago for that... and i would be afraid shed keep going past the bottle....

I have searched the bathroom extensively and shes not there.. so that is where the cat is living for now.. she stays in there day and night and I moved her litter and food/water into there as well

UGGG

She was fed about 4 days ago.. (4 med rats) so I dont think she would be hungry but you never know... the only tell tale sign she left is that she knocked over a lamp behind the couch where she caught the elctrical wire and drug the whole lamp down...

The only thing thats scaring me right now is that the bathroom was most likely open doored.. but i dont know if she would have gone down the toilet.....

Im afraid to ask but if she did where does that go, could I find her if she did?

Well depending on what room she was in when she went AWOL depends on where to look the most .

You said she drug a lamp off the couch?
then its possible she has got in the couch not just " in it " but the arms od the couch are double walled so a snake could get in the couch and you could pull the cushions off and never see it unless you look in the arms by making a small cut in the sides below the cushion line ( i have found a snake here before )

Bathroom & kitchen cabinets -
Highly likely place to find one , the "toe kick" of a cabinet generally has about a 1" gap between the floor of the cabinet and the floor of the house/apt and yes a 9' boa can get under that 1" gap and lay there ( also had my huge female get there once had to demolish cabinet to get her out check here by running hand at the toe kick you will or should fill a small gap bewteen the overhang and the toekick.

As also mentioned in the boxsprings of the bed , another place to look is in the closet of the bathroom ( if there is one ) alot of rentals will have a hole to access the plumbing of a tun from past repairs , this serves as a great hide for a snake the tub will hold heat from hot water and they can slide up and under the tub and hang out being totally dark and unseen.

Chances are she didnt go down the toilet a snake that large would get caught midway due to the path of the toilet waste flow . these are very tight and have a rough surface to them to break up turds and toilet paper lol she would very likely be caught hanging 1/2 out of the toilet if she went that route .

ifby a chance in hell she went down the toilet then you would more then likely nbot recover her untill she comes out in another apt or the sewer sorry to say .
Hope you find her i would likely lay some tin foil along the walls so that by chance she moves around the walls at night you might find her , i wouldnt use the sticky mouse traps as there could be negitive results from the makeup of it not to mention if she went over them she would be one pissed boa when you have to pull them things off her
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Buisnesses come and go everyday, what keeps you here is how you treated the customer the day before....My Boa Can Kick Your Boas _ss!www.cheapcages.com
Visit the new website while the Jungle gets made over.

I had 9 snakes get loose one evening - forgetting to close cages. It took me 6 hours to find them all. They were in every room. I had to take the back of my couch apart. The last one that I found was in the window ceil above my bed. That was the start of my paranoid triple checking. Good luck.
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--aka DMOG68

They will travel along the walls and snuggle into some hidden corner.
I've lost a 12' foot burmese in a couch..... those are tricky.. I had to leave a rabbit on the couch with a fan blowing it towards the insides, then as she started coming out, had to slowly back away and back away, or else she'd grab the rabbit and anchor herself in the couch.

As mentioned, under cabinets and furniture, behind ovens and refridgerators, ANYWHERE where there is heat. ANYWHERE where you or anyone else would normally never look.
Even hanging on the rods holding your curtains.

They can get under furniture, push up past the thin cardboard, and end up in the upper part of the furniture, inside or behind the drawers. CAREFULLY pull out each drawer and check underneath and behind the furniture.
In the bathroom, she could have gotten into the cabinet and gotten under it, into a space where you wouldn't be able to access.

I have a boiler room and once found a boa in the ceiling boards.. he somehow crawled up into a crawl space / window that was not insulated, just raw cement with wood covering. It was freezing cold and uncomfortable, but he was there for a few days (I could tell by the urates and poop closeby, deposited on different days).

So look everywhere you would think not to. lol

Best wishes!

Joe Rollo - Bci Joe
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Thanks and take care - Joe Rollo
'Tis not the stongest of the species that will eventually survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change' Charles Darwin

about 2 months ago. One thing I've found is they usually stick to the wall until they find a good hide.
In the couch is a good place to look. Turn it over and you can usually remove a thin piec of covering to expose the guts of the couch.

I found mine once in the wall right where the dryer exhaust came out.

Like was mentioned before, they all have to eat. I once put a live rat in a bird cage and set it out in the middle of the room as bait. It worked too! You should have seen the rat after having been struck at by the snake.

I know a lady that had a 6 foot boa get into the wall, or so she supposed. She left the boa cage open near the hole and by the next day the boa was back in the cage. I guess it was drawn by the scent.

Good luck
Rich

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bigdnutz
1.2 Suriname
1.0 Venezuelan

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.. I will be taking apart the apt again VERY soon.... one downsie is that the "couch" is a futon... only a 1 piece cussion with no entrance anda tube frame.. I have checked.. no entrance points there either, i looked

Keep watching the news. Your neighbor will find it, and then your town will pass a law that says you can't keep it. Don't think that won't happen. You need to tear that whole apartment apart until you find it. Us herpers don't need any more bad press.

Thanks A$$hole! Like I dont already know my responsibilites to the herpin community by "allowing" this to happen... Listen.. I didn't loose an animal.... I lost a friend, a companion, a family member...Everyone on here has been extremely helpfull and you have to come here and troll....I dont collect snakes... I have family members... I only have 2 pets and yes I will be tearing my place apart... why... not becasue I care what you say.. its becasue I want her back... maybe you have no idea what its like to only love 1 specific animal since you have god knows how many.. but this has hit me hard.... and I dont need people like you telling me what to do, or whats going to happen "if the news gets ahold of the story"

I don't have to defend myself to the likes of you

Patrick, your last post is making me cry. Wait a minute while I wipe the tears from my eyes............... Hold on, I need a towel to wipe down my key board.
Stop your crying and find your "family member". Maybe if you didn't sleep with it, you might not lose it. It's a shame your "family member" doesn't love you as much as you love it. Lol
Hey Patrick, relax...I'm just busting your chops. I hope you find her. Every one of us has lost a snake at some time or another.
By the way, thanks for the A$$hole compliment. I was starting to think I was losing it.