4 days ago
Swollen snake needed help — and fast. Vets discover it wasn't an egg that it ate
A swollen snake needed help — and fast.
Photos posted online showed the snake arrived at a Virginia animal hospital with a bulging body. Then, a veterinary team discovered the culprit.
The creature had swallowed a golf ball that it likely mistook for an egg, creating a health scare, according to the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center.
'This snake recovered well from surgery and will be in care for at least a few weeks while we wait for the gastrointestinal tract and skin to heal,' the center wrote June 3 in a Facebook post.
The snake received the much-needed care in Boyce, a roughly 130-mile drive northwest from Richmond. The animal organization said it handles several of these fake egg cases each year.
'As these eggs cannot be digested, victims will present an egg-sized swelling around the middle of their body,' the center wrote. 'This is where the object gets stuck as it cannot fit further down in the gastrointestinal tract. If not found in time, the pressure of the fake egg against the wall of the tract and the skin will cut off blood supply, causing the associated tissues to die and ultimately leading to death.'
The organization said some people use fake eggs to help their hens with laying. Now, it urges people to glue multiple decoys together or nail them down to avoid putting wild animals at risk.
The recovering reptile, a non-venomous central ratsnake, is expected to be released back into the wild later this year. While the center didn't say how big this snake was exactly, members of the species can grow up to 6 feet long on average, the Virginia Herpetological Society wrote on its website.
McClatchy News reached out to the Blue Ridge Wildlife Center for more details and is awaiting a response.
