Tragic,Preventable Death

[guidofatherof5]

By my own arrogance, I accidental killed one of my snakes today.
When I designed and built my new enclosures I knew there was a problem with the doors. They are bottom hinged. This means when you are closing them you have to make sure no snakes are in the area of the bottom. They could get pinched. Causing serious injury or death.
In my arrogance I told myself I would never let that happen.
Today, it happened and I killed a very beautiful 1 year old radix. She was one of my favorite young ones.
I should have designed a extruder device into the bottom of the door when I first designed it.
This has weighed heavy on me all day and I was unable to go to sleep tonight.

I've now designed a very simple extruder device to keep the snakes out of that danger area.
It's a simple design, one I should have thought of.
All that is needed is a bicycle inner tube and a staple gun.
The ends of the door were the first obstacle. Covering this area wasn't the problem, it was making sure no snakes could get behind the inner tube when the door was closed. I solved this problem by folding the inner tube over at the ends. When the door is closed the strength of two layers of rubber will keep the snakes out. Then it's just a matter of stretching the rubber over the bottom of the door.
This effectively seals the bottom of the door and hinges from the snakes. One nice thing about the inner tube is that it can just be wiped off if it gets dirty.
Why didn't I think of this before.
Now I just have to retrofit 22 enclosures.

As you can see from this photo the inspectors were checking my work.

[Stefan-A]

So sorry to hear it, Steve.

Good solution, by the way. The nice thing about preventable deaths, is that they are preventable.

[kibakiba]

Sorry for your loss Steve, but just remember that everyone makes mistakes. You've found a good solution to prevent it from happening again.

[infernalis]

So sorry Steve....

[indigoman]

So sorry to read about your accident, it did remind me of my potential hazard area with the hinges on my Exxo Terra enclosure fortunatly its only caught atip of a tail so far! Hope we all are taking a second look at our own set ups!

[Selkielass]

Man, sorry about your loss. The innertube solution looks like a good one- thanks for sharing it so others can avoid similar mishaps.

[snakeman]

That sucks.

[drache]

oh Steve, I'm so sorry
I've done something like this and know how awful it feels
that's a good solution
I've also used aquarium tubing of varying diameters for an assortment of sliding door and screen top issues - don't have any with hinges now, but if I ever get any, I'll remember this issue

[guidofatherof5]

Here is the finished product. I had to adjust the corners a couple times but now I know what to do on the rest of my enclosures when the time comes.
I'll be hitting the local tire stores for inner tubes.
As you can see from the other photos, I had a lot of help doing this project. Using the staple gun and all the other movements involved didn't phase these girls. They just wanted to see what was going on.
These two girls are sisters and seem to always be out together.

[Mommy2many]

Sorry to hear of the tragic accident! Glad, though, that your inspectors seem to approve of the precautions put into place. You seem to have lots of good help.