Snake ate ceramic egg! Will it die?

An absolutely gorgeous 4' Eastern rat snake got up inside the raised-off-ground chicken coop yesterday, and the neighbors (totally freaked out) came to the door to let me know. They were absolutely terrified of this snake, which I am so glad to have here even though it's never tried to get into the coop before. I've got the inner run of the coop completely protected with hardware cloth, but the door to the run was open so the chickens could be out in the paddock during the day.

We had lots of great drama around this snake, which had this huge egg-shaped bulge in its body that prevented it from slithering through any opening to get away. I talked to the snake and spent about fifteen minutes trying to get it out of the coop area and into a space where it could slither away to safety. I think my neighbors were in awe of my superpower with snakes!

But, alas, the egg the snake swallowed was not a real chicken egg but the ceramic egg I'd put in the nesting box so my new Prairie Bluebell chicken would figure it out. This ceramic egg has a thick shell and will decidedly not be digested.

I can't stop thinking about this poor snake. I'm so sad that it now has this big bulge in its belly that will likely be with it the rest of its life. Is there any chance it might come out the other end at some point? Will this poor snake make it? Or has it gone off to die?

It may be able to regurgitate it.

Trace Oswald wrote:It may be able to regurgitate it.

Oh, I so hope so!

One guy suggested golf balls to get rid of snakes. I don't know if its fatal but I'm guessing so.

Huxley Harter wrote:One guy suggested golf balls to get rid of snakes. I don't know if its fatal but I'm guessing so.

Oh, dear....

The only similar case I'm aware of was when I was taking a tour of a wildlife rescue. One of the snakes there had gotten into one of the rescue's bird enclosures looking for eggs, and ate one of the wooden ones. The egg had to be surgically removed, but the snake survived.

If the snake is not able to regurgitate it, its chances are slim.

Ouch. I don't know the answer to your question (other than we're all going to die someday) but if you find out please post the results here. A very interesting problem.

Trace Oswald wrote:It may be able to regurgitate it.

Or else have one heck of a bowel movement!

Ellendra Nauriel wrote:The only similar case I'm aware of was when I was taking a tour of a wildlife rescue. One of the snakes there had gotten into one of the rescue's bird enclosures looking for eggs, and ate one of the wooden ones. The egg had to be surgically removed, but the snake survived.

If the snake is not able to regurgitate it, its chances are slim.

Well, obviously I'm not going to be able to have the snake operated on, so I've got my fingers crossed it can get it out. I wonder how long it will take it to figure out that it's not going to break down....

Huxley Harter wrote:One guy suggested golf balls to get rid of snakes. I don't know if its fatal but I'm guessing so.

If you've ever taken apart a golf ball, they are traditionally made of tightly wrapped strands of narrow rubber (inside the hard dimpled shell) that surround a core that is a little bag of castor oil.  It's enough castor oil to be hazardous to small mammals like dogs and cats, but I dunno about snakes.  May or may not be relevant if the object harms by physical indigestability.

Snakes can regurgitate some amazing things.  I had a burmese python that ate a rat and then a chicken.  Something must have been wrong with the rat, although I have no idea what because it was a live pet store rat that I fed it.  Anyway, the snake ate the rat, then the chicken, regurgitated both, and then ate the chicken again.  Snake was fine after.

I hope your snake gets rid of the fake egg.  As for the guy that uses golf balls to kill snakes.  I think that's a really shitty thing to do.

I had a friend in grad school who was researching moray eels. They would collect samples of eels by catching sea snakes and getting them to regurgitate recently eaten eels. Even though the snakes are very venomous, that was the easiest way for them to get eel samples.

I think they just gently massaged from back to front until the snakes gave up their eels. No idea if this would be effective for your species of snake or if it's an option to recapture the snake.

It's tough not knowing the fates of wild animals we cross paths with. We're left to imagine the worst.

Huxley Harter wrote:One guy suggested golf balls to get rid of snakes. I don't know if its fatal but I'm guessing so.

I'm not sure how he meant to use them, but I do know people who have snake problems with chickens place an egg on the inside and outside of the chicken wire. When the problem snake comes by, it eats both eggs and is trapped long enough for the person to get it. I've never thought about how long it would hold a snake. It must not be too easy to regurgitate if it holds the snake for long.

A friend put me in touch with a leading snake guy at UGA, and he said if the egg (or whatever it is a snake should eat) has not gone down too far, you can gently massage it up in the direction of the mouth and the snake may regurgitate it. He said that would take a long time to do, but it would work. He said the egg would not pass out the other end. His advice was for the next time this might happen. He said the snake probably won't make it. Makes me sad, but at least I'll know what to do next time. I also could have caught it and taken it to Sandy Creek Nature Center to see if they would take the snake and perhaps help it.

Hi. I want to thank you for the advice about massaging the belly. I found a beautiful rat snake in our coop this morning and we successfully helped her push the ceramic egg out and traded her a real one. There’s lots of different ways to handle that situation and i felt responsible because i bought the ceramic eggs. We get plenty to eat, if this snake takes a few it doesn’t hurt anyone i think. The whole process took about an hour and it seemed to know what to do all by itself but it did try to pull the egg deeper and I was mostly there to stop it going down. I pushed towards the mouth on the belly side with fingertips pretty lightly. It moved about 1 millimeter a minute. Very slow. But it did move so i kept with it until the fake egg came out.

When I was a little kid, I had a book called The Crows of Pearblossom by Aldous Huxley. Spoiler alert: a wise owl helps Mr and Mrs Crow by painting some clay eggs and putting them in her nest for the rattlesnake villain to devour. It didn't end well for the snake.