Surgery on rat snake that ate a golf ball

Hey everyone!

Havent posted in a super long time! I am looking for any general advice with this snake Im keeping for a bit. Ive never owned anything except corns but being the resident snake person at work I kind of got volunteered to take care of this guy while he heals. Luckily I have an extra tank, lid and heat mat.

I work for a vet and a friend of hers found this snake in a birdhouse on her property. Shes a lovely lady and her husband was going to relocate it on their property and they realized something was very wrong. My boss agreed to take it, we did x rays and surgery and pulled a golf ball out of this guy.

Hes 2 days post op now and hanging in there. The exotic vet we consulted with instructed to feed after 4 to 5 days something half the size of his body.

I have no experience getting wild snakes to eat FT.

Any well wishes and advice is appreciated.

Pics to follow....

Pics

What a gorgeous black rat! I'd bet he'll convert pretty easily. Most ratsnakes tend to be little garbage disposals when it comes to anything food-scented. When I first tried feeding my w/c garter snake, I got some feeder fish because I've always seen garters go nuts for fish. She wouldn't even look at them, but she didn't even hesitate to take a f/t mouse from tongs.

If he could eat a golf ball I don't think he will refuse a mouse. You could drag it around in his container with tongs until he zeros in on it.

That's what I said! Obviously he's not very discriminating! I adore this snake, BTW.

Well that's a beautiful snake!

and i have to say thats somthink i have never seen before, i live litterly across the road from a golf course and i have never seen a golfball inside a snake!

mind you that could be because theres 0 snakes here, the only snake i have ever seen was up at the lake district it was a Black Adder i picked it up and had a look at it took some photos (il see if i can find them) then stuck it back where it was (before i knew they were protected species and venomous)

Just wanted to update and say she ate for me! We are waiting for poop now lol

Glad to hear she ate. Some may wonder why she ate a golfball in the first place. Black rats will slither into a hen house and eat an egg. Sometimes a golfball is placed in a nest to fool chickens into laying in that nest. If the golfball has the scent of a hen or hen fecal matter, it fooled the snake too. When I kept chickens I used plastic Easter eggs to fool the hens, but my coop was ( large) snake proof. Unfortunately, those keeping chickens usually kill the beautiful rat snakes, rather than relocate them to a more distant area. Your boss, and those assisting her, spent a lot of time and effort to save that beauty. I hope the snake can soon be released into the wild, preferably not near any chicken coops.

One of my co workers owns a house on a lot of land...no chicken coops. lots of woods and trees, and mice/squirrels/birds. We plan to release her there. I just want to make sure she heals with no infection. Id hate for her to die of infection which is treatable before we let her go.

Lucky snake!