HEN FANCIER

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 167, 8 March 1932, Page 7

HEN FANCIER

GIANT PYTHON EATS EIGHT EACH WEEK. Since his arrival from Java a few months ago, the giant reticulated py thon at Sydney Zoo has consumed 49 fowls and two ducks. The ducks were his Christmas dinner.After a period of dainty picking he has now adjusted his menu to about eight fowls a week, sandwiching two weeks' repose in between such meals. The fowls don't know much about it, because the axe settles their worries ere they are set before the python and he in turn, doesn't know much about them, as, when he reaehes the fingerbowl stage, he drops off to sleep for two weeks and misses the digestive thrills. He swallows the poultry whole, for it is easy for him to Ojpen wide. The jawbones have suffieient play to enable victims as large as goats to be swallowed. Swallowing hens is not all the python does to pass the time. About every six weeks — not once a year, as ig .popularly believed — he sheds his skin, > . . This is quite a feat. First he soaks himself thoroughly in a pool to soften the skin. Then he coils his 28ft length of body around a rough log, and, by gently rubbing himself, casts the skin during one night.