Python the star attraction at Snake Temple

Python the star attraction at Snake Temple

A SEVEN-metre python in a snake farm within the Penang Snake Temple grounds has caused quite a stir of excitement when it laid a clutch of eggs.

The reticulated python, aptly named Big Momma, started its labour sometime around 6am or 7am yesterday, according to snake farm co-owner P.H. Chew.

By the time his wife and daughter opened the farm at 9.15am, Big Momma had already laid more than 10 eggs.

Treading cautiously: Snake farm assistant Teoh Lean Hong, 56, collecting the eggs laid by the 7m python named Big Momma at the farm within the Snake Temple grounds in Bayan Lepas, Penang

She continued to produce egg after egg, before the very eyes of stunned visitors to the farm and iconic temple, and by the time Big Momma was done at about 4pm, 21 eggs were collected.

Hidden beneath her heavy coil were probably more eggs uncollected at press time, but the farm owner was not prepared to push his luck by disturbing Big Momma just yet.

The eggs, soft to the touch, were about 10cm in length and 22cm in circumference.

Chew, who called The Star to highlight the good news, said reticulated pythons normally laid 40 to 50 eggs in a single clutch and did so once a year.

“It will take eight to 10 weeks for them to hatch. The survival rate is 70%,” he added.

He said Big Momma came from the wild and it was just three weeks ago when she was brought to the farm, all distended and heavy with eggs.

She was fed five to six chickens a day.

Chew, 52, believed that Big Momma was 20 to 30 years old judging from her size.

He has six reticulated pythons at the farm and Big Momma was the very first to have laid eggs there.

Visitors watching Big Momma lay her eggs

In total, the farm which opened in 2005, has more than 50 snakes from some 40 species.

British tourist Mary Langan was one of the visitors lucky to be there at the right time to witness a python egg-laying process.

“This is really interesting,” said Langan who asked Chew a barrage of questions about pythons and eggs.

Another temple visitor, Koh Lean Hua, enthused: “This is such a rare moment and a once-in-a-lifetime chance of seeing a python laying eggs. I feel so lucky and happy!”

Interestingly, the Snake Temple has a close association with eggs, chicken eggs that is, which are a main feature during the birthday of the temple’s resident deity, Chor Soo Kong, that falls on the sixth day of Chinese New Year.

On this occasion, the temple is inundated with thousands of chicken egg offerings by devotees.

The offering of eggs, supposedly for the venomous vipers which have made the temple their home, is a tradition peculiar to the temple.

The vipers are, however, fed a diet of white mice rather than eggs, so the chicken eggs have ended up being donated to orphanages or turned into cakes.

But Big Momma’s precious eggs will most certainly be accorded special care, by decree.

Chew said the reticulated python was a protected animal and the number of eggs laid and successfully hatched must be reported to the National Parks and Wildlife Department.

He said he might keep one or two of the python eggs for display at the farm.

Big Momma’s ‘real’ eggs are welcome news at a time when eggs have recently received bad press for being fake.

The Consumers Association of Penang had highlighted a housewife’s complaint about fake chicken eggs bought from a market in Pulau Tikus, but laboratory tests done by the authorities on several hundreds of seized eggs later proved them to be the real thing.

-News courtesy of The Star-