14 DAY TRIAL // Cat and especially dog owners are all too accustomed to having their life companions eat all sorts of bizarre things every once in a while. You'd think that, if you choose a snake as your pet, you'd be spared such conundrum.
As it turns out, this isn't exactly true. On the contrary, it was just the other day that Aaron Rouse of Adelaide, Australia, had to rush his pet python to the vet to have BBQ tongs removed from its stomach.
The snake ate the tongs as a side to a rat
Aaron Rouse says that, on the day his pet snake Winston swallowed the BBQ tongs, he used the utensil to feed it a rat. The python ignored the dead rodent and instead latched on to the tongs.
Thinking that Winston would eventually figure out that BBQ tongs don't make the best side dish, Aaron Rouse simply let the snake have them. When he returned later, he was shocked to see that the tongs were gone.
“I tried to prise him off the tongs but we didn't have any hope of that at all,” the man said in an interview, as cited by ABC News. “I was dumbfounded,” he added.
The python had to be rushed into surgery
True, snakes can regurgitate their food. They do so when they feel threatened and come to the conclusion that having an empty stomach would give them a better chance of putting up a fight or making a run for it.
Still, having examined Winston, veterinary expert Oliver Funnell of Adelaide University decided that, in its case, the best way to go was to cut the animal open and remove the BBQ tongues from inside its stomach.
The vet thought this to be the best solution because, unlike the food snakes usually eat, BBQ tongs have sharp edges and can, therefore, prove quite tricky to regurgitate.
The surgical intervention went well and Winston is expected to make a full recovery. As for owner Aaron Rouse, he promised to be more careful the next time he serves the python its meals.
