Don't know how much you know about rat snakes, but they tend to either climb or burrow in the wild. Joshua, my long term pet snake who was stolen, burrowed. He had a HUGE tank full of soft natural bedding, and we live-fed him (he was a wild snake I took in for rehab & kept, long story). We'd drop a mouse in the tank and then...well, have you ever seen "Tremors"? Looked kind of like that :-)