Over the weekend I moved my little corn snake (Gabby) from the boaphiles rack back into a glass tank. I felt like she was getting shy from having a little tiny window in a deep dark cage and did not have enough room in her 1/4 of a level anyway, I could not afford to give her more space in the rack so I bought a secondhand glass cage with an “aftermarket top”. There was a small gap that I thought I fixed (the cage should have had one of those screens that slides into the top like a drawer, but that was missing and the edges of the slides looked like they had got a little melted from a heat lamp so trying to find a replacement would not have worked anyway), and the lid that fit onto of the cage was very secure, plus I had a strap around it so I figured she could not get out.
I was wrong.
Came home last night and checked on her first, and found she has escaped. TERROR and PANIC set in. I have two cats, and two ferrets (ferrets spend most of their time in the playpen in the living room). My little cornsnake could easily be mistaken as nothing more than a fun toy for them. I was MORTIFIED. I close the door to the office/snake room and start looking around, not really expecting to find her. Fortunately, she was under the boaphiles rack and I only spent maybe 5 minutes in this agitated state.
Put her in her strike box, along with all the other snakes into their strike boxes (the stack of rubbermaid tubs I have for this specific purpose is a bit comical), fed everyone, and though the others went back into their respective homes, Gabby is still locked in her strike box which I know she cannot escape from. I gave her water, put some nice heavy items on top of the strike box (just to quell my nerves, the strike box actually locks), and will fix that glass cage edge over the weekend to totally eliminate that little gap in Gabby’s cage.