Warning - lesson learnt - bulb guards

[Lankyrob]

WAnted to share this with the group as i had the fright of my life last night!

I have ceramic heat bulbs in all my snake tanks and each one is guarded with a metal guard screwed into the roof of the viv. they have been in there for getting on for a year and i have never thought to check them.

Last night one of my yearling corns was found INSIDE the guard - thankfully his viv is in the middle of two others so his bulb is rarely on as the other vivs keep the temps at the right level.

Checking the guard i found one of the screws had come out and one other was loose and the snake had been able to force enough space because of this to get through a very small gap.

ONce he had been rescued and checked over - 100% ok thank god! - i checked all my other bulb guards and found a few of them had slightly loose screws - all i can think of is that the heat and the snakes bumping against the guards has caused them to loosen - i WILL be adding this check to my WEEKLY checklist!!

Hope we can all learn from this without any snakes getting injured.

[SnakeyJay]

Thats a close call rob... Glad ur corns ok after that scare.... Im gona check when I get home from work now !

[stephanbakir]

Thanks for that rob!

[Lankyrob]

No worries - was kinda embarassed that i hadnt noticed the missing screw - was in the substrate and could have hurt him if it dug into him

Just glad that A) he is fine and there is no more risk to him and B) hopefully others can learn from my mistake and stop other snakes getting hurt.