Ozzy the python on the loose
A SHY baby Ball Python is on the loose in Garsfontein and her teenage owner is heartbroken.
Ozzy said to be a shy but loveable “girl” somehow got out of her cage a week ago – last Friday – and is nowhere to be found.
Her owner, Zuraida Venter, 14, told The Star’s sister paper, the Pretoria News that she was at the end of her tether with worry about her beloved Ozzy.
“I have three wonderful snakes as my pets. My eldest ‘child’ is called Alexa and she is a Corn Snake. Her bonded partner is Axl, also a Corn Snake. And then there is Ozzy, my most beautiful brown Ball Python baby of about 10 months.”
Zuraida said she was very upset a week ago while the family was getting ready for a camping weekend, when she noticed that Ozzy was not in her cage. She wanted to check-up on her and say goodbye, but there was no Ozzy.
While no one is sure how Ozzy managed to escape, the family are pointing fingers at another family pet – a “naughty” Eclectus parrot named Jewel. “She is my father’s bird and known to be very naughty. We suspect she somehow opened the cage, enabling Ozzy to slither out. We immediately started searching for her but could find her nowhere.”
Zuraida said that a week later, Ozzy is still missing but the family is hoping and praying that she has found a warm spot somewhere in the house or nearby, hiding. Her mother, Christina
Casquilho-Venter (known as Snow) bought a mouse to try and entice the snake back to her cage when she gets hungry. The mouse has not yielded success yet and even escaped from the hamster cage where it was kept as bait.
The mouse was found the next morning on Ozzy’s heating pad, next to her cage. She is now in Ozzy’s cage, waiting for the latter’s return.
Zuraida is pleading with anyone who saw her “baby” to contact her mother on 082 880 5704.
The family lives across the street from the Garsfontein Police Station, but they doubt that Ozzy would reach the men in blue, as these snakes are lazy and do not move around a lot.
But if he does, the family gave the assurance that Ozzy is a lover, not a biter. “Ozzy is very small. Only about 38cm long.”