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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by timbo king[/i] [br]Hello! A few months ago my King snake escaped from its vivarium and while attempting to find him again i searched the internet for tips and ideas on recapturing him. Although there were several articles they were spread about and often unhelpful, so i was thinking maybe it was a good idea to have a thread where every one uses there experience or offers suggestions on the subject of escape prevention and recapture, so that any panicing owner will benefit from others experience. My king snake is a juvenile and the first king snake i ever owned, i also own a corn snake which only escaped once due to me leaving the viv open and was quickly found! However the king snake seemed to escape from a closed secured vivarium. I was warned that they are very capable escapologists and searching on the net discovered that alot of people to this day cant figure out how there king snakes escaped. Luckily after the first escape we found him after a few days in a duvet cover, yet were still unable to explain his escape. The kind of vivarium we have is the very common style with the two sliding glass pannls. It previously housed our corn snake when he was a juvenile (and the same size)and we had no problems what so ever. After a few days of having him back my girlfriend caught him red handed in an escape attempt. He had managed to flatten his body and squeeze between the two glass panals of the vivarium, a gap so small that we had thought it an impossibillity (3-5mm)! And of course having faith in the manafactureres of the vivs we thought they would have made sure this gap was escape proof. So luckily enough we had got there in time to prevent another escape and work out how he was getting out. From that moment onwards i placed sticky tape over the gap in the glass sealling off the previous escape route. However i woke up one morning to a strange noise, and discovered (you guessed it) our king snake pushing back the sticky tape and half way out again!!! I doubled my efforts and layered the tape but despite this a few weeks later he was out again. I think its worth noting that he seemed to make attempts after shedding (sluffing) his skin, not sure if this has any science behind it but thought it was worth mentioning. Again luckily, we managed to find the little sod after 5 days of him being on the run. But this time we are taking no chances and thoroughly taping up the gap ( a small fortune in stickytape). I just wanted to post this so other owners would be aware of this perhaps overlooked escape route. And see if anyone had similar experiences? I guess we will have to keep securing the viv in this fashion untill he has grown considerably. As far as recapture goes the most helpful tips i found were to sprinkle flour on the floor in the hope the the snake will slither across and lead tracks to where he is hiding. Also obvioulsy leave food out and shelter in the form of his hide. Also (not sure if this is coincidence or not) but the second time he was captured he was crawling down the stairs while we were playing led zepplin loudly ( i recommend the immigrant song). He hadn't eaten for a goog few days and i wondered if the vibrations had drawn him out in to such an exposed location? Thanks for your time please add your tips thought etc. [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.