My 7 month old male got loose and I haven’t been able to find him at all. Unfortunately I work long hours and don’t have much time to dig through the whole house every day. It’s been about 2-3 days since he’s been gone. I’ve watched a few YouTube videos about retrieving lost snakes. Just wondering if anyone else has any good ideas. Thx!
Not had an escapee for ages, but one thing that worked (after one got under the centre of my king size bed for a couple of days) was turning off the heating in my house, after another day I found her curled ontop of her rub.
All of the things you can try, you can use most if not all of these together:
- Close all doors to block of the room and stuff towels under the doors.
- Make sure any pets cannot get to an area where the snake could be.
- Look around a 6 foot area first since that’s where they are 95% of the time.
- Look in nearby boxes, clutter, under tight areas, etc. Somewhere that would be cramped.
- Place short (5-10 inch) pieces of scotch tape parallel to base boards sticky-side up. Make sure the tape is not super sticky. Only use scotch tape, it should come off easily with a small amount of olive oil.
- If you have some, place motion sensitive night vision or trail cameras and set them to max sensitivity in an area where only the snake would set it off.
- Make a snake trap, there are many good videos linked in other threads here.
- Place a heat source (heat pad, open enclosure, etc.), f/t feeder item, and/or water to bait him. These would work especially well with a motion sensitive camera.
- Some people say that snakes are hypnotized by the television and by leaving it on the snake will stay staring at it if it sees the TV.
- Check warmer areas, lights, lamps, refrigerator, etc., usually they will be under or on warmer areas.
- Be patient, people have had them turn up many months later
Great list erie
Depending on what type of heat you have…
Check/take apart baseboard covers, I’ve found 1 there b4, if hot air make sure any accessible vents are covered.
For the trap idea- heat pad under 5gal bucket with ramp up but no way out once in, maybe food(live pup) in bucket as additional attractant.
Scotch tape idea- I actually had this work recently by accident. I had just moved to a new home in Oct and somehow a hatchling carpet(even smaller/harder to find) got out. I never thought I’d have a chance of finding it especially because it had easy access under doors and into walls from closet. A few months later I was rearranging some vision for my larger species and found a full shed under 1 of them clear across the room from where she escaped. A few nights later I was in the room and heard a crackling sound. My son had left a box he’d finally unpacked on the floor with loose packing tape hanging off and the little sucker got herself stuck. It came off easily enough with warm soapy water. 4 mths on the loose and she was caught 10ft away from where she escaped, she’d barely lost any weight and could hardly tell she’d been loose. Oh and I have 2 cats in the house that always follow me into the snake room when I’m in there.
Goodluck, keep us posted.
First thing…If you have a garbage disposal DO NOT TURN IT ON until you are positive lil dude not in there. I once had a baby mangrove snake escape…I turned the house upside down and after a month one night went to use the kitchen sink and he was sitting right by the garbage disposal drain…I guess he might have been looking for water. How in the world he climbed all way up to sink I have no idea.
My other suggestion would be to look at night, that’s when ball pythons are most active.
Had a baby escape a few months back, could NOT find her for the life of me. Decided to wait until nighttime, and sure enough found her trying to climb into the closet of our spare bathroom
That’s a good suggestion, I’m going to add to that and say to look with a flashlight instead of turning the lights on. This is actually more for helping to look since with a flashlight you’re forced to look at a small area at a time instead of trying to take in the entire scene.
Another thing I forgot to add, but they usually travel along the walls since they won’t want to travel in an open space. So I’d also suggest while searching to look along the walls and also look under/in anything against the wall, they may be hiding there.