Help !!

A mate of mine has a corn snake loose in the hoose (it's only a year or so old if that makes any difference) but anyway do any of you have any ideas of how to catch the bugger ? . He has a reptile room and has looked in all the warm dark places with no luck and i've heard before of traps you can set . He reckons it might have got out under the door and into the hot press and maybe down through the pipe holes under the floor boards . Told him i'd ask on here for him since he has lost his password . Help appreciated and will let you know the outcome .

If he goes to sign in, the forum prompts to put in your password but if you have forgotten it has an option directly under the required fields, the forum will issue him with another.

It's a hard one but one the best ones I have heard about is leaving food out, (just a pinkie will do) on the floor and just leave sticky tape all around, the snake will get caught up and cannot move properly. It's worth a mention not to go for super stick tape as it could do more harm then it's worth when trying to remove it. Some people go for bottles too and some combine as in cut the top from a 2lt bottle which is attached to the tape, the snake cannot go hide while trapped in tape and dragging the top of a bottle.

Best of luck on the hunt.

He may have been a member before the site changed but anyway i remember seeing posts on another forum against using tape but never paid much attention as i doubt if it will be a problem i will encounter . Thanks anyway Tan . Forgot to add he gets booted from forums for not posting , he only joins for advice and to see whats for sale !.

lol Well it's each to their own tbh. I have never used it so cannot say really much in either direction apart from common sense would say if you do trap using a normal sticky tape and take precautions removing it then it should be OK. Maybe snakes have injured themselves when tangled up which I suppose would be a risk but then making most of these traps will have some amount of problems attached.

You have 4 things you can use to your advantage - a snake must drink, a snake must feed, a snake will find somewhere cosy to hole up, and it must also move around in order to find these things. When was the snake last fed? If it was a while ago then you can use warmed food e.g. pinkies to entice it into a purpose-made cosy shelter.
Snakes prefer to move around the edges of a room and avoid crossing open spaces when they can - so check the room edges for e.g. holes around radiator pipes, gaps at the edges of floorboards etc. and investigate those. A snake will need water before food, so make sure the food is warm (leave out last thing at night so its warm and fresh overnight) and wet to act as a double attractant. Check first thing in the morning as snakes will move to a more secure shelter as daylight strengthens.

Get a load of chinese containers, cut a small hole in a bottom corner of them, one at each of the short sides, fill with cosy bedding and a nice warm pinkie, place on the floor against a wall, and have a heat mat on a low heat below. Then cover the whole thing with e.g. a towel to keep it snug and dark. A small snake crawling around the edge of the room should go into one of the containers to hide / feed (this may take time).

Another method is to cut strips of cardboard, place them around the edges of the rooms where you think the snake may be, and sprinklle sieved flour over them. Any snake crawling over them will make a track in the flour, and likely leave a flour trail behind it too. I would place these around and betwee each of the chinese containers, and along door saddles, so you can keep track of any movements.

I hope it little blighter turns up, they can end up in the weirdest and most inaccessible of places. Try looking everywhere, not just the warm, dark, cosy places as an escaped snake may not have found those areas yet.

Thats excellent info there Karl
I'm just gonna add my bit....from a guy whose corn can escape anything and not show any evidence of how he got out....
Anyways, first off he really won't go far, even if given the opportunity. Second, as has been mentioned he will look for somewhere warm...and he'll most likely be in a place that you would dismiss 'cos you highly doubt he'd ever stay there...for example I've found Link(my corn) under the floor boards, he'd gotten out of his tub which was on a shelf on top of a radiator(not directly above, but you get me) and he had managed to get his way into the hole around the radiator pipe and wrap himself around it.....look everywhere and then look again, I highly doubt he has left the room unless hes particularly close to a door, so retrace where he most likely went, go to his tub/viv/rack and scale the skirting board and look in everything close by he could have went to...He could be in a shut cupboard by getting in through the back from going along the wall..Like he said, he is going to be in the last place you'd ever look....so look everywhere!
The traps never worked for me, he is a bit too smart for that lol but it might work for yours

Thanks for the tips folks . He's on night shift all weekend so he won't get much time to do anything but i've sent him the tips and will let you know how things go .

Nice one, keep us posted :)

well there ya go, some great advice from the boys. Keep us posted and let us know how it goes.

Hope he finds his snake. I've had a few escape and to be honest I have always found them within a 6ft of where they escaped from.
As has been said a house with a food beside it is the best way to find it.



Good luck

Snake found . He found him in a cupboard in his rep room . Thanks again for the advice folks .

Nice! did he use any of the tips? or just come across it? lol

Awesome !!

squeakzor wrote:Nice! did he use any of the tips? or just come across it? lol

He followed Karls advice using the flour and cardboard but he decided to start clearing the room and started with dunging out the cupboard and caught a flash of it .

Excellent news. I'm really glad he turned up.

Nice one, they never seem to go too far, I've always found my escapees within 6' of their viv, usually much closer than that

Any escapes weve had are always behind their viv, they never go far!

Same here, they are always within a few feet and even if the door is open they have yet to leave the room which I am thankful for!!!! Luckily only my corn has escaped:D

haha, gonna have to keep this saved somewhere, getting my girlfriend her first corn, so this might come in handy at some point! lol

Excellent news !!

jonty wrote:Nice one, they never seem to go too far, I've always found my escapees within 6' of their viv, usually much closer than that

i disagree i had a rat snake that went a good 100meters down a field and the feild was across the road behind a neighbors house...couldnt beleave it...!