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My adult female rubber escaped yesterday or last night. The cage seemed tight, but I guess I underestimated her. The cage was on top of a book shelf. She isn't hiding among the books, as I would have thought. She also isn't under the book shelf, or any other object in the living room. Does anyone have experience with escaped rubbers? Do they tend to go to the best hide spot and stay there, or do the roam around the house? I am not looking forward to trying to find such a small, secretive snake in my cluttered apartment. I have put flour down in the doorway to each room already. If anyone has any other ideas on how to draw her out of hiding please let me know...

Thanks,
Jacob

earlier this year (May) I had someone come in to my snakeroom while I was gone and look at my snakes. The idiot didn't close the cages completely and let out several snakes, including my male and female Rubber Boa as well as my 5 foot ravenous Eastern Kingsnake.

I found all the snakes over several days, except the female Rubber Boa. I kept looking around for weeks, checking in the morning, evening, at night, etc. to try and find her out crawling. Finally after a few weeks, I gave in to the inevitable assumption that she had been eaten by the female Kingsnake during their mutual free time.

As I was packing up to move in late July, I was moving some sweaterbox lids that I had stacked up on a shelf next to where the rack where I had the rubbers. Lo and behold, there was my female coiled beneath the stack of lids. She was a little thin, and thirsty, but otherwise unscathed. I'm glad she wasn't gravid this year!

What is amazing about it is that she could only have gotten onto this shelf directly from the rack she was in (she couldn't have climbed up from below). Therefore, I have pretty good reason to believe she was out of her cage and stayed on that one shelf just a few feet from her cage for over 2 months!

No wonder I couldn't find her - I had assumed she would have travelled more than 2 feet in 2 months!

So the lesson is, don't give up hope, and don't overestimate the distance she will have travelled. Hope your story ends as happily as mine did.
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Chris Harrison

Hi!

I JUST had the same experience! I just (5 minutes ago) found my Rubber Boa- weak, dehydrated, emaciated! What did you do to bring her back:???? She's been missing fpr around 40-50 days!!!

Help!

Eric,
How did you find it? Was is somewhere you hadn't looked or did you find it out and about?

Thanks,
Jacob

I had 4 neonate rosy boas and a neonate sandboa escape. In all 5 cases, I ended up finding the snakes, sometimes weeks after, and if you could see where, they were found no more than 15ft away from the cages. One was actually crawling around the rack about a week after escape, even though I searched the room many times prior. It is likely that they don't move far, but they hide well, so keep looking. One was in the computer case unharmed even though the computer had been on. Of course I looked there last.

In contrast, I've had a few milks and kings escape over the last decade. Of those, only one kingsnake (a ruthveni, which is a montane king that probably in the wild doesn't move very far) was found within 20 feet of the cages. The rest were seen in the backyard or in the street (in most cases just a few days after escape) or not at all. The snakeroom was upstairs in my house. Goes to show you how kings and milks are much more mobile.
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Mark G

Assorted rosy boas, some annulata. That's it.

This is what I expected. That is why I was sure I would find it in the book case, but no luck. I had a kingsnake escape in the fall, and it didn't show up until 4 months later outside our house sunning itself on a rock. I still don't know where it stayed for the winter, but it has been a little insane ever since then.

I will go over the whole room with a fine-toothed comb after work...

Jacob