Deadly backyard mistake Aussies are making as snake wolfs down beloved pet
'We hate seeing the family pets inside of a snake'.
Aussies are being urged to take action after the latest fatal attack on a family pet, which involved a coastal carpet python making a meal out of a guinea pig. Snake catcher Brandon Gifford says a mum, dad and their teenage daughter owned the pet for five years before it became the reptile's dinner.
In a video, the snake can be seen curled up in the pet's hutch before Gifford pulls it out, revealing a swollen belly. "The guinea pig will take about three or four days to digest and the snake won't need to eat again for another month," he explained. "They can go for six months to a year without food if they really need to.”
How to protect your furry friends
This latest deadly attack in Queensland is the latest in a string of similar incidents. "There was one a few weeks ago, there were two little girls and they both lost their guinea pigs at the same time, and that was bad," Gifford, from Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers, told Yahoo News Australia.
"It's happened quite a bit lately with guinea pigs, in those particular hutches where they've got the broader mesh and there's no base on it. The python can very easily just squeeze a head underneath it or go through the mesh. These particular guinea pig hutches, they're just not snake proof. They're not built for Australia."
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Gifford is now urging pet owners to adapt their cages to protect pets by attaching smaller mesh around the entire hutch, including the base, so the grass can still come up but snakes can't get in. In the video shot in Caboolture, he said it was an "easy fix".
"It's always tragic," he said. "We hate seeing the family pets inside of a snake, everyone does, but if you've got some spare time on your weekend definitely make those adjustments and you probably won't have it happen."
Peak time for snake encounters
Australia's exceptionally early start to summer sparked an early start to the snake breeding season, with the reptiles getting down to business as far back as August. "We've had a heck of a lot of heat so everything is starting to breed, just to prepare in case there is a drought," Gifford explained. "Snake species in particular will try to breed a little bit more if it's about to dry out, just to get their numbers up in case times are tough."
A lot of pythons are out feeding now we're at the end of a bumper breeding season. "The first thing they want to do is go out and get a big food item into them, whether they've just laid a clutch of eggs and they've used those resources or the males have been out actively looking for girls and they're cooked, so they go get a big feed," the snake catcher said.
Fortunately, as non-venomous snakes, pythons are relatively harmless to people, but they can kill pets quickly. "They're a constrictor so they just bite, rapid squeeze and cut off the blood circulation," Gifford said, "so the animal actually dies pretty quick compared to what we first thought."
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