Disappeared Snake

Please note, all really important information is in blue. Sorry for the long post.

Murphy is really hitting me the past couple of months and I'm not even breeding snakes! I've lost 5 snakes in the past couple months due to this or that. A candycane, normal, blizzard, butter motley and a high gold bp. Don't even want to think of it. Lol. Anywho, I was doing soaking for snakes. I seem to be having a humidity problem in my house and need to fix it because most of my snakes are shedding badly. I lost two snakes to bad sheds (I think).

Well, as some of you may know, I'm in the market for a rack system to rid myself of a lot of problems, including too many snakes in not enough tanks. One of the 10 gallons was housing two males, a coral snow and a normal. I was doing my rounds checking water and pulling out poo when I came to this tank. Now the two snakes, Houdini 2 (Coral Snow) and Dusty (Normal) are still very jumpy snakes. Actually, Dusty has a habit of striking at me. I figured he would be under the water bowl as usual and lifted it up to check on him. Only found Houdini.

I thought, "Okay, so Dusty is in the bedding somewhere". I went about looking for dry poo to take out and realized that thus far, I hadn't been struck at. I realized that I hadn't seen Dusty, so I dug around in the aspen more.

No snake. Only the coral snow. In the eight months I've had snakes, I've misplaced two snakes. The first was a coral snow, Houdini 1. Now the normal. I was lucky and found the coral snow after a week. My dog kept whining at the dresser and low-behold there he was.

I spent three hours looking through that room. The problem is that one of my PIA (obscene abbreviation) roommates stays in that room. He pays absolutely no attention to the animals in there and didn't realize there was a decaying bp about three feet from his head for a week. So of course, he never noticed a two foot snake anywhere.

And the room is a disaster. His stuff is everywhere and my animal boxes are in the closet. Not to mention three fish tanks and six snake tanks, various empty ones... you get the idea. His clothes are everywhere and he has boxes too. There's a trash bag in there as well which I'm not looking forward to going through. He also has a pit bull that stays in that room and the door isn't always shut.

I haven't noticed any animal with blood on its lips or paws, so I would assume the snake is still in one piece. With three dogs and two cats, what are the chances that it will stay that way? The pit is REALLY interested in snakes.

Should I move stuff out and go through it as I do? Should I keep it all in that room and kick my roommate out of it until the snake is found? Besides bottle-traps, heat sources, piles of clothes, and searching, what else can I do? Because I don't sleep in that room, I doubt my dog Scrap even knows that she should be looking for a snake. She'd find it, if she knew about it. Can tape traps be successful for snakes averaging two feet in length? It's been about two days since it went missing (I think). What are the chances that the snake discovered the open door and then the open furnace? Do I even want to think about that one? Is it possible that the other snake at him and digested him enough for me not to be able to tell? Can I scream now or later?

I've never had one go missing so I can't give too much advice as far as trapping or tracking him. I have seen people suggest laying flour trails along the edges of the walls and checking for snake tracks. From the sound of it your roommate would never notice the flour. Also heard that tape will work along the base of the walls for most any size, just check them frequently and make sure its PAINTERS TAPE or MASKING TAPE. DO NOT USE DUCT TAPE

I can say though that corns won't eat other corns, or they aren't supposed to anyways. If they are about the same size I doubt he would be able to keep the other one down.

Sorry I can't be more help.

If you do a search for 'escaped snake' you will find dozen of threads with good advice on how to find escapees

there have been verified reports of canabalism in corns
dont let pepper see that you are co habbing, she'll rip you a new hole

Originally Posted by gelshark

there have been verified reports of canabalism in corns
dont let pepper see that you are co habbing, she'll rip you a new hole

Originally Posted by gelshark

there have been verified reports of canabalism in corns
dont let pepper see that you are co habbing, she'll rip you a new hole

Yeah.... she's mean

Alright I'm not tryin to sound to harsh but either you need to rehome your snakes or you need to rehome your roomate somthing has to give It sounds like your pets are being neglected ( to a certain extent ) I have had messy roomates before when i was young and the last thing i wanted to do was venture into their room I would imagine your prolly in a similar situation whether you are or not you said yourself that your "loosing" snakes and your ball python was rotting by his head ? Come on . . . . . Maybe move the snakes into the common area ? Why cant you house them in your room ? We all love our pets but if your not in a situation where you can give them the time and most importantly SPACE they need then please find them temporary homes until you can.
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dont mind me I'm PMS'ing

I forgot to even address the co-habbing part too . . . . . You have empty tanks ? Then why have 3-4 snakes in a tank together anyway ? I think I'll have pepper's back on this one.

Originally Posted by covato78

dont mind me I'm PMS'ing

I don't buy it.... The only period used in that entire post was used as a pause.........

First, we found the... (thinking of nice word)... snake. Got a knock on the door with the neighbor's son asking if I'd lost a snake. His poor mom just about had a heart attack. I can guarantee that I'll hear about it from my landlord in the next week. He's dusty (no pun on the name there), so I think he got into the furnace or something. Huh.

Second, to address all concerns...

*I put an add up yesterday in the Wanteds for someone to take time to build a rack system for me as I'm pretty stupid with building. If I don't have an offer for the job by the weekend, I guess I'll be ordering one or three online.

*The empty tanks I have don't have screens or heat pads or anything. Without the heater working, I've been spending all extra money (and not so extra) on vet bills. It's been over a month without heat and several snakes have RI despite extra heat sources. Hopefully that will be fixed tomorrow. I wasn't wanting to use the empty tanks because I'd all ready spent close to $600 for extra heat sources.

*With working four days close to 16 hours each day every week, I don't always get to check on each animal every day, but do have three days in which to do all checks and such. The dead snake incident was an argument that lasted three weeks. I feel no need to rearrange my house when roommates aren't paying rent (wouldn't that make them bums?) and they're supposed to move out on Jan. 31 (wait, isn't it past that?).

*Generally I take very good care of my animals. The past few months have been hard money-wise which is why I've waited so long to do a rack system. I was hoping to find one at the Expo last month, but it was a no-go. Now with work going well again, I shouldn't have a problem. Vet bills are going to be painful though. I'm looking at a minimum of $3000 in the next two months (yay...).

*Guinea pigs are in my room because of the pit bull. 2 feet x 14 feet cage. Doesn't make a lot of room. I'm in the process of rearranging the entire house and can't wait to get rid of the roommates so that I can access all of my animals. I get to feed my fish in that room once every couple of days because of one roommate. Luckily, they're used to a sparse diet.


Last note, I'm hoping to get these snakes organized within the month so that all these problems are gone. I'm hoping to move to a three-bed house in the next few months as well. It'll be bigger than my two-bed apartment. Also, I know I deserve to be laid into. I will take all criticism with good grace. Heck, pm me with all yelling you want. I could use the virtual slap upside the head.