Eggbert was so thin and hungry, he ate the closest thing that looked like food. "Looked like" is the key here. Dinner was an egg, a favorite of rat snakes, but it was a ceramic egg. For several years the egg had lain in Michelle Varner's chicken coop near Picayune to encourage her hens to lay.
It even smelled like a real egg.
Eggbert was ravenous. Gulp.
With the indigestible "egg" lodged inside him, Eggbert could no longer slip through the chicken wire. Many farm folk would behead the snake, but not the kind-hearted Varner.
"It is a good snake, a gray rat snake purported to keep away less desirable snakes," said Varner. "I live on the edge of Bogue Chitto Wildlife Refuge. I'm in their world and I try to share it with them."
This snake also has a bit of history. Six weeks ago, when Varner was out of town, a "city friend" who was watching her farm found the same snake with a real egg and gave it a whack with a machete as it crawled off. Varner figured it was dead until last Thursday.
Read the complete story, and happy ending, at sunherald.com