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UGH!!! Help Plz!!

B

BeauBoi

New member
Hi All!
I have been setting up a new snake-room, and I thought I had found a perfect solution to create snake racks without using RUBs.

My husband works for the DOD as an engineer, and the government is constantly getting rid of used office furniture. One such price of furniture was a lateral filing cabinet; rather than drawers, it has five shelves with doors similar to those on a roll-top desk. Well, today I finally got my new order of heat tape in and was setting up the cabinet. Everything was going "perfectly" (I thought), as I had identified possible escape routes and thought I was ready to add snakes.....until I put my adult blk rat snake in to see if I had missed any escape points...

As it happenes, I DID miss an opening. It is an opening about 1/2 inch "tall" and about 3 inches "wide" that was hidden by the fold-down door... Sure enough, she has somehow managed to cram her 4+ foot belong body into the this dead-end...

I tried taking the screws out and removing the door, only to discover that the section she is in doesn't come off (at least not with out a cutting-torch...). I am not even sure she CAN get herself out!

I would have taken a picture, but it isn't possible because of the angle of the enclosure.

I am at my wits end! Can a snake back her way out of a dead end like that? Should I just continue as I am (having secured all avenues out of the cabinet) and just wait and see if she eventually gets her self out....?

Any and all suggestions appreciated!

Thanks,
~Beau
 
Ok....never mind, I guess. She CAN get out....she just chooses not to get abut at this time.....<sighs>
~Beau
 
BeauBoi said:
I am at my wits end! Can a snake back her way out of a dead end like that? Should I just continue as I am (having secured all avenues out of the cabinet) and just wait and see if she eventually gets her self out....?
Click to expand...

Yes and Yes :)

If she does get herself out and will be contained after then I would give her a few days to do so.

It's always a learning curve with reptiles when you do DIY racks and Viv's :headbang:
 
Thanks! If you can imagine a cereal box made out of stainless steel, that is attached to side of a stainless steel cabinet, about 3 1/2 inches wide, 6 inches deep and 1/2 inch across. She originally went in head first (head at the bottom of the box) and pulled the rest of her body in after (although I would NEVER have believed that she would have been able to fit even half her body into the "box").

Well...went and checked on her, and she had now re-adjusted herself so that, while she still has her body crammed into the "box", she now has her head (JUST her head) sticking out of the top so she can look around.....

It is going to be a long long LONG night.....<sigh>:headbang:

~Beau
 
The old saying that "snakes are gonna snake" is so true !

My DIY racks and Vivs are escape proof but twice last year A yearling beauty snake and his mom both shot out of my hand on a feeding/cleaning day and found the smallest holes around the heat pipes and crammed themselves in. I had to wait out the yearling but was able to persuade the mom to back out. She is a handful !!! Haha......
 
Wow! That kinda sucks! Sorry to hear that, but if it's any consolation, look at the bright side by realizing that although she escaped - in a way! - she isn't actually LOST, which would be worse, no? It's most probably, at least hopefully, a waiting game at this point. Nothing else I can say except that at the very least, you do have others pulling for you and you don't have to suffer alone, in silence.

Keep us posted!!
 
Well, I seem to have had an inordinate amount if "snaking" as of late! To be honest, I have to take at least %60 responsibility for my misbehaving herps, due to sheer carelessness, but at ~least~ %40 can be attributed to sheer craftiness on the part of my snakes!

It all started with a cracked black plastic piece on the top of a 40 gallon breeder tank (you know, the black plastic "frame" that goes around the top and bottom of a fish tank?). When I noticed the small crack originally it didn't seem (to me) to be an escape possibility....boy was I wrong! One of my California Kingsnakes (who already had a history of fleeing at any given opportunity...) managed to work that tincy-tiny crack into a big enough opening to escape her cage.

After that incident, I decided that it would be in my and my pet's best interest to switch over to a rack system. At first, I decided to order a secondhand, professional rack system from Faunaclassifieds. All seemed well at first, but due to a looseness between the tubs and the shelving, I had 3(!) snakes get out! Luckily, all 3 were caught rather quickly and I decided that perhaps it would be better to build racks from instructionals found here and BP forums rather than to buy more used racks (new professional racks are outside my price range).

So, the next rack I built.....unfortunately, due to mismeasurment on my part, I experienced the same problem I had with the used rack I bought used--2 escaped this time, and it took 2 days of desperate searching to locate them.

SO.....this last time (since I still need 3 more 5-cage racks) I was looking for something what would be closer to "escape-proof" and I found this stainless steel filing/shelf system.... On the upside, I'm not worried about her getting OUT of the rack...LOL

~Beau
 
axis1 said:
Wow! That kinda sucks! Sorry to hear that, but if it's any consolation, look at the bright side by realizing that although she escaped - in a way! - she isn't actually LOST, which would be worse, no? It's most probably, at least hopefully, a waiting game at this point. Nothing else I can say except that at the very least, you do have others pulling for you and you don't have to suffer alone, in silence.

Keep us posted!!
Click to expand...

:) Thank You! The big advantage of the Forum (imo) is that you can post here about things that the neighbors just ~wouldn't~ understand! Lol
~Beau
 
I hope all is well with the Houdini. I'm not very creative, but based on the amount of wiggle room in the racks you already have, would a thin piece of plywood cut to size raise the tub up enough?
 
Wow! It's the 11th today and I thought for sure your sneaky one might've been outta there by now!

Any news on the mischievous rat snake?
 
axis1 said:
Wow! It's the 11th today and I thought for sure your sneaky one might've been outta there by now!

Any news on the mischievous rat snake?
Click to expand...

Sorry it took so long to post a follow up! She stayed in the "box" for 2 and 1/2 days. I finally got her out by putting a live ASF rat Ina carry-cage on the same shelf that the "box" was attached to with a tool over it. The next morning, she was under the towel, trying to find a way into the cage!

I would have posted about it then, but we had a neighborhood-wide cable outage that lasted 2 days, and by the time it got fixed I had forgotten about this thread. :eek:. My bad!

~Beau
 
Wow! At least it ended OK! Not sure how that poor rat feels about it though! Imagine being the "bait" in THAT situation? A nightmare for sure! But hopefully both are doing well currently!

Thanx for letting us know!
 
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