New KSBs!

[Mimstrel]

We finally got a safe shipping window, and I received my two new Kenyan Sand Boas this morning! The female was unhappy about the whole ordeal, so I transferred her straight into her new home to settle in, but the male was happy to explore my fingers for a few moments while I snapped the attached photo!

Both appear healthy and active. I'll give them a couple of days to settle in and then offer food - it has been a week since their last feeding so while I was originally planning to give them about 5 days, I think I'm going to compromise and wait 3, then offer food, then decide how to proceed from there. I'm sure they'd be fine waiting 5 days but I'm not sure my mammal brain can handle letting creatures so small go that long without at least offering them food.

[jay's reptiles]

Very cute, do you plan on breeding them?

[Andy_G]

Congrats! They can go MANY weeks without food, and I would suggest waiting at least 5 days before offering like you were planning to.

[Mimstrel]

Thanks!!

Breeding them is not my goal but may be something that I choose to pursue. The female is 100% het albino so if I breed these two and then breed her with a son I could potentially get snows and snow stripes among those offspring. I will see what I feel like when she's fully grown. Right now, she's smaller than he is.

[Mimstrel]

Apparently I am a terrible snake keeper. My female has already escaped. I came home tonight and had this feeling of "something is wrong with the snakes." I debated for a while- stress the snakes by digging them up to check on them, or stress myself by leaving them alone. In the end I decided that it would be worse to not check if something was wrong, than it would be to check and find that all is well. So I started digging. The male was easy to find, in fact I didn't even have to dig him up because he was right in a corner and all curled up where I could see him. The female is smaller, which is probably how she escaped (hindsight is 20:20, I'm pretty sure I found her escape route and I'm kicking myself for missing it).

She could have been gone since Wednesday afternoon. I still have places to look so I am hoping to find her, but I have been sick this week so I also need to sleep, I can't keep going tonight. My biggest concern is if she gets into the ventilation, and also I just killed a mouse so my whole house probably smells like food to her. Any advice if I don't get lucky and find her in the morning?

I'm trying to stay hopeful but I'm really upset about this mess. :(

[DLenaRuth999s]

I'm so sorry about this. An escape does NOT make you a bad snake keeper; it happens to everyone eventually. I don't have experience with KSB, but when one of my corns decided on a field trip, I sprinkled flour around the baseboards saw his trails, and backtracked to his hideout. It took a few days. I'm hoping you find the little noodle

[afsgr88]

Oh no, I am so sorry to hear that :( Did you have any luck?
I can relate to what you're going through...My BP escaped after just a few days being under my care and it was absolutely horrible. It was 200% my fault and I felt terrible about it. I spent days and nights looking everywhere in the house for him, tried every trick, from spreading flour on the floor, putting warm hideouts all across the house, rat smell, actual rats, etc etc, and nothing worked. After a week I just started thinking he may have gone into he ventilation system or that maybe he had died. Then one day I was sitting on the couch and I see his little head poking out from the top of this 2m cupboard I had in my living room! Still to this day I have no idea how he got himself up there!

I am hoping that you will find your little female soon. Never stop looking. Some times those little buggers can really surprise you.

Please keep us posted! Best of luck to you!

[TRD]

I keep/kept many snakes "famous for escaping" ... and I have 2 sand boa's... a normal KSB and a E. miliaris.

None of my escape artists ever escaped. Both my boa's have escaped. Both were found, one was very lucky. The first (KSB) was hiding under a door, between door and floor. He was fine. The Miliaris was under a big sitting pillow and we saw one of our cats frantically jumping around it... so out of curiosity we flipped the pillow. Both escaped from a CLOSED enclosure. 1 managed to push the lid open (didn't think they be that strong, but they are) and the miliaris literally crawled through a tiny tiny hole between the glass door and the railing AT THE TOP of the enclosure. Looking at that hole and the snake you would never think it would be possible, but it was, he even tried it again but was caught with his pants down so to speak :)

All I can tell you is that I was really not expecting that. Close all holes and make sure they can't move the door or push a top up. They will manage.

Never underestimate Houdini the Sandboa.

That said, you can make several snake traps and hide them around the house, make some scent trails. Sandboa's in nature are nest robbers... it will be even natural from them to crawl into a trap :) you can google various methods to make a trap, mostly done with cutting a soda bottle top off and reversing it back in, leaving a pinky mouse in the bottle overnight.

[Mimstrel]

Thanks, TRD! I got your PM as well. I tried putting out a cardboard box "trap" for her but no dice; the bottle version may work better, they'll be easier to put in hard-to-reach corners where she might be hanging out.

I haven't seen any sign of her. The male (his name is Dolomite, Dol for short) is still happy in his habitat, and he'll get a fuzzy tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get her trapped. The snakes live in my bedroom, which I've been in the process of emptying so that I can remodel. The good news is that I have a tiny house and I'm hoping that she would instinctively stay in the warm parts and avoid the rooms where I shut off the heat vents. The bad news is that everything that would normally be places like the top shelf of my closet, is now in my living room. There are SO MANY places for a snake to hide.