Blue Ridge Wildlife Center Patient of the Week: Central Ratsnake

Last week, we admitted not one, but TWO Central Ratsnakes on the same day with the exact same problem: each had swallowed a golf ball after mistaking it for an egg.

And yes, as you can see in the photos, they even chose different brands!

Golf balls, much like ceramic eggs, are sometimes placed in chicken nesting boxes to encourage hens to lay in a particular location or to give broody hens something to sit on instead of eggs that could hatch. Unfortunately, to a hungry ratsnake, a golf ball that’s been sitting beneath a chicken can smell an awful lot like the real thing.

Ratsnakes rely heavily on scent when searching for food. They don’t have a way to realize they’ve made a mistake until after they’ve swallowed the object, and by then, the golf ball can become a serious problem.

Unlike a real egg, a golf ball can’t be crushed or digested.

Once it moves into the gastrointestinal tract, it can become lodged, stretching the surrounding tissue and potentially compromising its blood supply. If it remains there too long, the damage can become life-threatening.

In both of these cases, the golf balls had traveled too far down the digestive tract to be safely removed by inducing regurgitation.

Both snakes required surgery to remove them.

Thankfully, both finders recognized that something was wrong and got these snakes to us for treatment.

Once they’ve recovered from surgery and shown us that they can safely eat and digest prey again, they’ll be ready to return home.

Have chickens? You can help prevent this!

If you use golf balls, ceramic eggs, or other artificial eggs in your nesting boxes, please secure them so snakes can’t swallow them. They can be glued firmly in place or several can be glued together to make them too large to consume.

And remember: ratsnakes are actually wonderful neighbors to have around a chicken coop. While they may occasionally help themselves to an egg, they are not a threat to healthy adult chickens and are excellent at controlling mice and rats that are attracted to chicken feed.

Protecting the ratsnakes around your property helps protect your coop, too.

We’re incredibly grateful to two completely unrelated finders who, by a remarkable coincidence, encountered the same unusual wildlife emergency on the very same day and made sure these snakes got the care they needed.

Here’s hoping their next meal is a little easier to digest.

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