ESCAPE!

This morning started off normal enough. Came downstairs, ate breakfast and read the newspaper, and went to check on all the animals. My mom had already let Pepper (the parrot) out of his cage, so he followed me around on the floor, chirping.

I got to Misty's cage, and at first wasn't alarmed that I didn't see her. She's a pacific tree boa (Candoia carinata), and at 22" and the width of my pinky finger she is full grown. However, after checking her usual hiding spots, I started to panic. The lid to her cage is a bit loose, but she had never escaped before. I took the whole cage apart when I glanced over to the salamander cage nearby, and saw this:I found the opening where the lid had separated a bit and left a gap she could push open, and right away fixed it up with some duct tape. Here she is on my hand to give a sense of her size:She's a really fantastic snake, and not very common in the pet trade. She has fairly easy cage requirements (height, branches, 70s and 80s for heat and about 50% to 70% humidity), stays a small manageable size, and isn't aggressive. I used to have trouble feeding her and she would only take tree frogs for a while, but now she's eating frozen/thawed pinky mice and takes them within seconds. She can change colors as well - some days her patterns are dull and dark gray/brown, other days she really lightens up and you can see all sorts of shades of red, tan, even some faint blues. Definitely recommended as a pet if you can find one, not too expensive (got her for $60), and won't take up a lot of space. When handling her she's energetic at first, but will calm down quickly and in fact loves to wrap around my watch and will stay there for an hour or so.

So thankfully she didn't get too far and is back in her cage again, safe and sound. The snakes are being fed tonight, too, so she wouldn't want to miss that!