She Escaped Again!

[PsychoSnake]

Granted it's been almost a year since her last attempt to establish a retic colony on Mars. I was so out of it yesterday I forgot to replace my guitar, viola and violin cages on top of Mango's cage to weight down the metal grate top on her terrarium. So when I got home after work it looked like someone had broken into my house. Stuff was curiously knocked over everywhere, but thankfully she didn't break anything until I got home. She broke the top to a scented candle in my bathroom. The bathroom appeared to be her favorite place to hang out (I have to agree it is a nice bathroom), but not surprisingly she did venture to the kitchen to check and see if there were any rats/rabbits in the sink. Too bad. Just the empty thawing bowl was there waiting to be washed.

Her face was bashed up and bloody from the escape of her cage so I had to clean her up and treat her wounds. She hated it but is a docile creature and just tried to run away. She looks much better this morning.

My male retic was jealous.

[eminart]

You should put some latches on the top.

[Albert Clark]

THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^. And it's no laughing matter when you are talking about a escaped retic. After all the litigation that U.S.A.R.K. is embroiled in to allow us to even own these giants the least we can do is be responsible enough to lock them in their enclosures. That's all we need is the media to get hold of a story like this.

[PsychoSnake]

You should put some latches on the top.
Oh it has latches and Velcro. She is a very determined, intelligent and strong retic. Her penchant to escape is obsessive and she can be extremely persistent. She pushes so hard it sometimes wakes me up in the middle of the night with a loud BANG! BANG! noise. She uses her body like a jack and you can hear the strong vibrations of her muscles rattling the lid. The only thing that works is putting very heavy objects with even weight distribution on top. I have to put a plush towel between the metal lid and her access to it or else she just wreaks havoc on her face. :( The towel really helps to discourage her as she hasn't figured it out yet. But the latches give just enough leeway for her to force her way out. She's been doing this since she was a baby.

I'm working on getting an upgrade for her but a number of unfortunate things have happened to me and my family this year so money is very tight at the moment.

[MDT]

locking sliding front enclosure? Animal Plastics/Boaphile/etc?

[Kokorobosoi]

At this point I'd drill holes and padlock that sucker shut.

[toddnbecka]

How about ratcheting tie down straps around the whole rig?

[REM955]

attempt to establish a retic colony on Mars.
Eh?
And do you have a picture of the enclosure? I think that would help generate different ideas of securing said cage.

[bigsnakegirl785]

I agree, invest in a front-opening PVC enclosure. I have my retic in a T12 and there's no escaping from it.

[daisymaisy]

It only takes one story of a giant snake on the loose to get your local community wanting to ban them, so I agree, it would be good to troubleshoot how to fix this.

Glad you got her back in her place and fixed up her scrapes. They are determined creatures, for sure!

[waf]

Hey... you will need to replace the enclosure, in my experience, I've lerned that once a snake found some way to scape, cannot be stopped.. it will persist, no matter if got injured on the way.. I faced almost the same problem in the past, so, I built wooden enclosures, with glass front opennings and a good pair of latches on each. I did it for all my guys (retic, blood, boas, even for corn and lampropeltis) never scaped again...