How to catch the Python that’s loose in your house

How to Catch the Python Loose in Your House… (for my daughter)

OK. So your son’s pet python got loose today. If you remember, this has happened before though you weren’t around yet at the time. My brother’s pet boa constrictor got loose in the fall of 1969 and we found it in the basement in the spring of 1970. Nobody got eaten and I never got word of any missing cats or dogs – though I believe I heard mystical “sighs” coming from across and around the lake when word got out that Ralph (the boa) had been found.

Here is a suggestion that has roots in a story your grandmother told me about catching the snakes that went into the chicken house to eat the eggs. In her situation, they put a small hole in the side of the chicken house that was big enough for a hungry snake to pass through. A glass egg was placed just outside the hole that was too large to pass through the hole. Inside the hole a second glass egg was placed. So the snake would swallow the first glass egg, then when it had passed far enough down it’s body the snake would start through the hole then swallow the second glass egg. The farmer would then find the snake hanging in the hole unable to go forward or backward.

Now, you don’t want your snake to eat a glass egg, but you might catch it if you put a small live animal in a cage with a hole about the right size for the snake to get in but not be able to get out once it swallowed the animal. I”m thinking of an animal the size of a baby rabbit, 2-3 week old duck or chicken… get the picture? You might put it in the snake’s aquarium but put a different top on it so it would have a small hole to get in but not big enough to get back out once it ate the animal.

The down side of this option is that if the snake doesn’t eat the small animal, you will now have one more pet to feed. 🙂