I’m new to reptile keeping but am not to the mistakes that come with new keepers. In the short six months since keeping, I’ve managed to have two escapes. My first was my first reptile a Juvenile Gargoyle Gecko, about two weeks after having her in the enclosure and getting her use to me and the new environment I decided to take her out. Within seconds I opened the terraium door and she was on my arm and up my shoulder where she jumped to the floor. I quickly scooped her up and gently cupped her and in doing so allowed her to escape out of my hands. Trying not to squeeze her as she squirmed out in-between my hands jumping once again to the floor and in the blink of an eye disappearing. I panic, it’s almost dinner time. I begin to tear the room apart, moving everything from one side to the other starting with the bed. Then I begin emptying the baker’s rack of everything on it to no avail. Dripping in sweat and upset I knew there was not much more I could do. I put everything back in place hoping that every box put back wasn’t crushing her. Over the course of the next two weeks, I begin mixing up atleast ten cups of crested gecko powdered diet and placing it all throughout the room, figuring it would go to waste if the gecko wasn’t here to eat it anyway. I used both Repashy and Pangea, hoping the watermelon pangeas strong smell would atract her I leaned towards using more of it. I would mix it creating a smooth surface so I could check to see if they had been eaten from. Not a single one had a clue as to being touched. I lose hope, I give up. I begin to think maybe herp keeping isn’t what I need in my life right now or ever. It felt selfish and irresponsible of me to think of getting another reptile after losing one. But I did about a month after losing my gecko I got a Tremper Albino Leuistic Super Snow Leopard Gecko (Dr.Rockso) as my “first reptile”. Things couldn’t be better with him. I put my hand in and he comes out if he wants and doesn’t if he’s chilling. But I never stop thinking about my missing gecko. I hope everyday that when I come home she’ll be near the feeders or back in the enclosure, which still sat with it’s door ajar. Still it has now been almost six weeks,. I was confident she couldn’t of left the room and it was time to start thinking about finding the corpse. I notice something on the leopard gecko one night which turned out to be nothing, I go for my magnifying glass off the baker’s rack and notice what looks to be a shriveled up dead lizard on the floor. I die inside, she never even left the area. I don’t know why but my first instinct was to grab the spray bottle off the desk. I mist her a few times and after a moment she springs back to life and scurries back under the baker’s rack. I begin emptying the bottom two layers off the rack and remove the bottom level rack. She is against the wall not moving, exhausted and starved I’m sure. Everytime I get close she panics and scurries, as do I. I grab the cardboard tube that my lava lamp came in that I never put in the dumpster and place it on one side of her. After a few frustrating attempts I get her to run in to the cylinder tube. I slid her into her tank and out of the tube and shut the door. Emaciated and in poor health I give her fresh food everyday. Knowing it wasn’t going to be enough I slide a few calciworms into her tray. After looking and acting in a more upbeat Manor the days following I begin to feed her crickets, dubias, calciworms, and wax worms. It has been about two months since getting her back. I haven’t tried to pull her out again yet,. She is completely fine with my hands and lets me be right by her to clean and feed. She loves to hunt, I think it’s a dishonor to not give them the enrichment of it. I still feed her crested gecko diet every feeding and insects everyother. She spends the whole night hunting and burning energy, and seems completely content staying in the terraium right now. Some nights she sits where the crested gecko diet goes waiting for it and others she stays in the bush waiting to ambush some insects. I decided to name her Houdini. Well thank you if you made it this far. Like I said I’ve experienced escaped geckos twice so far and am currently in the middle of my second escape. It has been three days since another gecko has gone missing and I’ve seen her twice. I’ll keep you posted.
This is Enyo our Snow Corn. He is two now and very lucky to still be alive. When we first got him he was your typical baby corn size. At the time we seperated a ten gallon tub into two five gallon tubs (one half for each new snake we got that day). Well we didn’t realize the dividing cardboard made the lid poke up juuuust enough for a tiny corn snake to get out. Well needless to say after about a week of looking we wrote him off. Being so small, so thin, no reserves, we figured he slithered into a hole somewhere in our apartment and vanished.
Skip ahead two months later. We’ve replaced him with another corn and learned our lesson by buying smaller individual tubs. My girlfriend and I had a day off together and she was going to load the dishwasher. All of a sudden I hear a startled yelp and the door of the dishwasher falling. Girlfriend comes running with tiny Enyo in hand all excited and surprised. Two months missing and dude nearly got drowned in our dishwasher.
We got him setup in a tub. He ate two pinkies that night AND shed…