Snake saved by surgery in Australia after mistaking golf balls for eggs

BRISBANE, Australia - A veterinary surgeon has saved the life of a snake that mistook some golf balls for chicken eggs and ate four of them.

The Australian Associated Press says a couple in New South Wales placed the golf balls in a chicken coup to encourage their hen to lay.

The balls disappeared.

But all the couple could find was a lumpy-looking carpet python nearby.

They took the almost metre-long, non-venomous snake to the nearby Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. There, senior veterinarian Michael Pyne operated to remove the balls from the snake's intestine.

Pyne says the snake is now making a speedy recovery.

"Those golf balls weren't moving any further. They were stuck where they were," Pyne said.

"If it hadn't been found, it would have died for sure," he said of the snake.
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jJ9uObMWd9Qg6upaIRMFZpLFfkEw