Escape story

[Big Mike]

Our king snake came to see us off this morning.

We were just about to leave the house this morning when my girlfriend picked up her backpack and found our three foot long king snake under it.

This was quite surprising to say the least. We have never had an escape before and his enclosure is a glass tank with a snap on metal cage style lid. The lid snaps on so tight that my girlfriend usually needs my help to get it off.

Zeus had pushed up a corner of the cage lid and snook out the little gap that was created. The only explanation I can think of is that my girlfriend did not fully snap the lid back into place when we cleaned the enclosures last time.

I feel very lucky that he managed to find his way across the house and to just about the only hiding spot that allowed us to find him before we left for the day.

He is usually quite pissy when we try to grab him but he was rather calm (and quite warm) as we put him back into his enclosure.

Just goes to show ya...you can never be too careful about keeping your enclosures secure. Especially with king snakes.

[Simon Sansom]

Mike,

Glad you got your snake back!

Here's a "great escape" story...

The first year in our new house was the first year that I produced Trans-Pecos Rat Snakes. As some of you may be aware, these guys are usually the last to reproduce every year in many collections. The babies usually don't hatch until September - October, or even later.
Anyway, I had a nice batch of hatchlings that fall, and one day during routine maintenance I did not snap a lid on a container properly, and of course the inevitable happened and one escaped. We looked EVERYWHERE for this little one, but to no avail. Well, these things happen...

Fast-forward to the following spring...
One day there's a knock on my door, and it's my next-door neighbour and his daughter, and they're carrying a container - "Simon, do you know what kind of snake this is? I found him against the far side of my house while I was raking leaves".
So, I opened up the container, expecting to find a small garter snake or something, and there, lol and behold, was my little Trans-Pecos... none the worse for wear, to boot...actually looing fairly chubby!

This intrepid little snake escaped his container, found his way out of the basement, out of the house somehow, travelled across my property and the neighbour's, survived the winter, presumably insulated under a pile of leaves against the side of the house, perhaps even found at least one meal (of what, I don't know) and was found the following spring - I was amazed.

That's my best escape story.

Cheers!

Simon

[Tim_Cranwill]

Those are BOTH crazy stories!

[Big Mike]

Wow, That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing Simon. Did you let the girl keep the snake?

[Simon Sansom]

These people don't really like snakes, so I didn't offer. I was actually amazed that they didn't kill it.

Simon