baby escaped.....

[Spiritwolf]

I've found in my experiences, that cats weren't too interested in killing snakes. The ones my cats brought me when I was on the farm, were in good shape except for minor puncture wounds that healed after a few days of treatment.

One baby snake that escaped last fall, was found a week later when I heard one of the cats making a "trilling" call that cats make to call their kittens or call another cat to come see something they've found.
I went into the living room and saw a circle of cats sitting and watching something in the center of their circle. That something turned out to be the escaped baby snake, unharmed, and the cats were just watching it and one sometimes would reach out to try to touch it and the snake would move and the cat would yank its paw back right away.

When I've been handling the snakes outside their cages, the cats would keep their distance, clearly wary of this weird creature that doesn't have legs and whose head and tail look much alike (in the cat's point of view).

When I had my smaller rescue garter escape, the cats had plenty of chances to have caught it before the snake found me. The snake found me when I went over near my dresser, which has shelves and a variety of objects on those shelves. When I came close to the dresser, the snake came out of a vase of artificial roses and started trying to come over to get onto my shoulder from the vase! I was so relieved and happy that my fugitive snake decided to find ME!
And as long as I see no evidence of death of the fugitives that haven't been found yet, I keep leaving pcv and bottle traps, water dishes, etc, around for them in hope that they will turn up one day alive and ready to go home where food is served to them by their willing human servant while the snakes enjoy their cushy lives in captivity!

[Sputnik]

I've found in my experiences, that cats weren't too interested in killing snakes. !

I have to say my experience is the total opposite! There is absolutely no way you can trust a cat not to kill a snake. When I first had my garter babies, my cats managed to knock the tank down, when I hadn't secured it enough for them not to. They had taken great interest in the wriggly little things for days. I found one soon after with many puncture wounds, it died a few hours later, one managed to escape the cats and is living on happily in a new tank, but the last one I found a couple of months later in the garden, again with severe bite wounds which had killed it.

Anytime I open the vivs, the cats come running and if I take the snakes out, there are sneaky paws trying to make a swift swipe.

But throwing your cat across the room, is also certainly not the way to punish your cat! Keeping the snakes safe is YOUR responsibility and keeping different kinds of animals together means that you have to respect how each kind behaves. Shout a short sharp "no", or shoo the cat away with your hand (DO NOT hit her!), splash a little water at her or hiss at her and best of all keep your snakes well out of reach! It's not hard to keep the door shut and the cat outside if you feel you really have to let the snake "wander".

[anji1971]

Cats are not snakes' friends. Period.
They will play with them to death, even if they aren't interested in eating them. It's not a pretty way to let a snake die.
I've seen what they do to mice.