Ratsnake Escaped

[Albert Clark]

Originally Posted by verymoistcrayon

Well I've looked pretty much everywhere within the ten feet and most of the beyond. I cannot for the love of all things fuzzy find this snake. He hasn't touched the radiator, so that's good, and i've sifted through any garbages in my room, so he's not in the trash. I went through my drawers in which he was not there, stripped my bed bare, checked in all the little crevices around my bed in which he could've gone, ripped my closet and bookshelf apart, looked under all furniture and guinea pig cage, etc. He is nowhere. He's either nowhere, or in plain sight. I've even checked the blinds.
I'm at a loss.
You would've thought that a living noodle would be easy to find, huh?

The main thing is not to be so hard on yourself but to realize these reptiles are escape artists. Do however, take the precautions of sealing off the spaces and gaps between the doors and the floor where you can either with a rug or rubber door flange. Be and stay hopeful that you will find him bc when you least expect it he will come crawling out into plain view. Especially as his hunger and thirst grows. Remember rat snakes are very good climbers so look high as well as low and in between. Get and keep a good flashlight handy bc he probably will be more active at night when its quiet. I think you will find him soon.

[akane]

Don't rely on aquarium lid clips. I've found any solid snake will escape eventually and small snakes are tricky things getting out of little spaces they can manage to make sometimes. Snakes can fit in amazing tiny spaces. My several inch diameter rosy boa had to be extracted from maybe inch wide gaps in a folded up dog crate by just annoying her until she wiggled herself free. Heavily weigh or hook down any lid. You can glue/silicone latches to the frame or directly to the glass. My rosy boa is not quite 3' and now has 4 bricks going in pairs down the ends of her 20gallon. Her lid is hinged down the middle and with 2 bricks she could still lift one side or the other. Luckily they don't go far being some of the slowest snakes in the world and fairly lazy. The last time she just went up a level to lay next to the light over the king snake tank. However, I was cleaning my new desk up and as I wiped into a drawer I got bit by a corn snake that should have been in it's new tank upgrade a room over. I automatically grabbed it given we have extremely limited poisonous snakes around and none that would be found indoors. The lid now fits tighter with a piece of coroplast as a slightly compressing filler because it's a bow tank so it has a separate curved front piece and regular rectangle back piece that is the section usually opened. Apparently the latch allowed enough wiggle room to force between the 2 sections.

If it gets in a cool space like the basement it's quite possible it will decide to just brumate there through this time of year. If not too dry they can survive months resting down in the cool, damp concrete of many basements and they won't travel far. People frequently find snakes the next spring when they travel back up if they found enough moisture for all that time or they should be in the same spot even if a sweep takes awhile to complete. A real pain if your basement is cluttered or has unsealed structures but lots of time to look. Otherwise look in even the tiniest space. Over 6' of bullsnake just proved it can pretty much completely obscure itself in a 12x12" space. Not that he was escaped but I was redoing his enclosure, took out his main cave to clean the stone slab of some snake poop, and thought I'd lost the snake until he knocked the single tile obstacle down on himself trying to cram under it better as a backup hiding place.

[verymoistcrayon]

Thank you all for your great replies. I am currently out right now, but when I get back home I'll check the damp towels and all the other places he may be. While underneath my bedroom door is pretty tightly sealed, I'll expand my perimeters and see if I can take a look near the boiler in the basement in case he did decide to take a journey through the hole with the pipe. I'm trying not to stress about it too much and just keeping an eye out is the best option currently. I just keep reminding myself that he's only been gone a week, others have had them on the lam for years. It is getting quite cold in the house though, so I'm a bit concerned about that.

[dannybgoode]

Don't be concerned about the cold. As akane has mentioned most rat snake species will naturally brumate over the winter anyway.

All my temperate species are starting to be put into brumation over the colder months - does them good.

[Mowgliozzy]

I know you said putting a mouse out is useless but..one time I lost my snake in my car for a few hours...long story. Anyway I put one live mouse in a deli cup with holes and one freshly killed mouse with its brain cut open also in a delay cup with holes) I know it’s gross and I couldn’t handle doing it myself so I asked the guys at the shop that sold them to me to do it) but anyway that made the scent stronger I guess and I left the car for an hour with the mice on the floor and when I came back he was just chilling by them. I know my car is a small space but it Might work for you you never know. Worth a try.
Edit: probably an obvious add on but the lids were closed so he couldn’t eat them and leave again lol

[Minkness]

That is actually kind of brilliant!

[verymoistcrayon]

The radiators are on today, hopefully that either warms him up or chases him out of the radiator if he's in it. Now that the weekend is coming up I can really do a thorough search for him. I'm not exactly comfortable with the whole mouse brain idea but if push comes to shove I'll consider it. I originally was thinking of getting a live mouse as a lure, but I doubt it would actually do anything and I'd end up with another pet rodent (I'm not so comfortable with feeding live at the moment, maybe in the future though). I'll be spending this weekend searching and coming up with any other ideas to draw him out, so any other tips are greatly appreciated.

(Side note, while I was searching the radiator I found a very large piece of chalk lodged in there? I can find a piece of chalk and a paintbrush, but can't find a living noodle. Figures.)

[Bandit]

Originally Posted by verymoistcrayon

(Side note, while I was searching the radiator I found a very large piece of chalk lodged in there? I can find a piece of chalk and a paintbrush, but can't find a living noodle. Figures.)

Chalk and paintbrushes aren't trying to hide from you lol. Check inside shoes, in laundry hampers, and in any buckets/baskets that may be used for storage. Also, if it has easy access to a bathroom make sure you plug up the drains when you're not using them. I think it would be unlikely that it would go down them, but you never know with a juvenile rat snake.

[Scubadiver59]

I check on my snakes every morning and night, but if I don't see them I figure that they're in their hides; well, when I decided to do a cleaning of my Yellow Rat's enclosure the other day, and removed all the hides, he wasn't in the enclosure.

I gave him a bath one evening, he had a suspect growth about where his stomach starts and that was part of his treatment regimen outside of the shots he was receiving, and I put him back in his 40gal after the bath but forgot to add the weights back on the screen top until later that evening. Well, when I put the weights back on, I didn't check if he was in there, thinking he wouldn't try getting out. Not a good idea it turned out.

Any, I went room by room, all my snakes are in my upstairs bedrooms, checking each room and when I got to the one bedroom where my Bull Snake lives, I was checking around some suitcases against one of the walls. Well, up on the top of those "large" suitcases was a zippered duffel bag that opens up on the top...and when I peeled open the top, which was un-zippered, there was my Yellow Rat laying inside.

Needless to say he went back in the enclosure and all the weights, plus a few extras, went on top. He's been in there since.

I consider myself lucky to have found mine, around three days after he probably escaped, but not all of us will be that lucky. All I can say is keep looking, follow everyone's advice about heat, food, etc. and hopefully you'll get lucky one of these days and find it again.

[Heidyth]

I had a rat snake get loose and didn't notice since I had just woke up. I opened the bathroom drawer and screamed from being startled by my snake. It was the only time she got out thankfully. Nothing like a snake in a drawer before morning coffee.

[verymoistcrayon]

I love all these stories,snakes end up in places you'd never think they would! This weekend is the weekend of extreme snake-finding. I'll also be putting signs up around my house letting other family members know that if they see him to let me know. I really,really hope I find him soon.

[verymoistcrayon]

Going on two weeks of him missing on Tuesday, and while it may not seem like a long time to you all, it feels like he's been missing for a year. I'll admit that I do feel like giving up at some points, but I not ready to yet. I am determined to find this snake.
Turns out that my radiator, the one next to his tank, is connected to the one below in my parents' room. If he truly went did go down the hole I would know, since there's an abundance of cobwebs throughout it and he would leave a little hole through them.
My uncle, the one who gave me the snake, considered me using an infrared app, but for those you need an infrared camera to connect it to, so that's out of the question.
Another thing we considered is making sort of a snake station? I'm planning on getting a live mouse in a small cage as a lure, and put some flour around it to create some tracks. I really hope that it works,and if not, then I guess I have another pet!

[EL Ziggy]

Don't lose hope vmc. I had a BP that once went missing for more than 3 months before mysteriously reappearing. All is not lost.

[Albert Clark]

You can't give up bc it will always remain ever present in your mind that he's missing. I would seriously consider targeting my searches at night with the flashlights. You maybe want to invite some friends and family for a sleepover and have more eyes and hands with more flashlights for everyone. Keep talking and noise to a miinimum. Concentrate on the warm areas on the floors and upper areas. Under fridge, under stove , electrical connections under desks, etc. Good luck and remember they usually don't travel far from their enclosures after an escape. Stay positive that its just a matter of time b4 he shows up.

[dannybgoode]

Agree with Albert. I've never not found a snake and that includes when I lived in a house with all kinds of gaps and cracks into the foundations etc (old 1890's house could have been a nightmare).

I'd still suspect he's in the room where his viv is.