Snake Eat Golf Balls

A carpet python has been operated on by Gold Coast vets to remove four golf balls from
its intestine.
“People have been putting golf balls under their brooding hens pretending that they are
eggs to make the chickens happy,” senior veterinarian at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary
Dr Michael Pyne said.
“The snake has got in thinking that he has got a free meal and swallowed up these four
golf balls.”
The snake was found by residents at a house at Nobby’s Creek near Murwillumbah in
northern New South Wales.
“They knew pretty quickly what was going on so they called us and we sent some wildlife
officers around to pick him up,” Dr Pyne said.
“We did the surgery a couple of weeks ago and he’s doing quite well.
“During the surgery we could see the name of the golf balls through the intestine because
they were so stretched from these large golf balls being in there.”

The snake – nicknamed Augustus – is currently being rehabilitated by a wildlife carer and is
expected to make a full recovery. It should be released back into the wild in a couple of
weeks. The diagnosis was made easier by the fact Currumbin Sanctuary wildlife officers had
seen the same problem once before.
“That one was harder to work out because the snake just came in with these two hard lumps
inside it and we didn’t know what was going on,” Dr Pyne said.