Australian snake handler massages tennis ball out of python

A snake handler in Australia with 15 years of experience on Thursday massaged a tennis ball out of a 1.5-metre-long non-venomous carpet python.
Trish Prendergast, a senior veterinarian in Townsville, Queensland said: “this is the first time I have seen a snake swallow a tennis ball.
“Another snake catcher brought the snake to me because I am a senior vet.
“We x-rayed and saw that the snake had swallowed a tennis ball.
“We believed the snake had ingested the ball within 24 hours of being found. So, we decided it was not too late to remove it.”
She said that if the tennis ball had not been removed, the snake would have died from slow starvation because it would not have been able to eat anything.
“We decided to do this manually because it was less dangerous.
“It required a lot of patience,” said Prendergast, who is known as the local “snake nurse.”
Prendergast said they used paraffin oil to ease and manipulate the ball for regurgitation and not to tear the oesophagus.
“Too much pressure or force would have broken ribs and damaged organs. Snakes have one long big spine with all ribcage,” she said.
“It’s a delicate procedure but it does not take forever,” she said.
She said that the operation took 30 minutes and the ball was spat out.
The snake, she added was then given anti-inflamattory injection.
“The snake must have eaten the ball because it smelt like a prey.
“It wouldn’t eat it for the sake of it,” Prendergast said, adding she has removed golf balls and plastic chicken eggs from snakes in the past.
She said that the python will be released into the wild next week.