In what will come across as a really shocking development, a man and
his wife have been found out to have raised a snake as their child.
An elderly couple in Haikou, China’s Hainan Province, have been
sharing their home with a 60 kilogram, 3.7-meter-long python for seven
years, raising it as their child and even taking it for walks around
their neighborhood.
According to Oddity Central, 68-year-old Shi Jimin, a retired meat
processing worker, adopted the python in 2009, to save it from certain
death. A fish and snake vendor had come by his workplace, and managed to
sell his entire supply, except for a small 30-cm long snake that no one
had wanted.
The man had said that if no one was interested, he was just going
to get rid of it, which is when he stepped in and asked the vendor how
much he wanted for the reptile.
Shi says that he eventually got it for free, as the man was just
going to kill it or throw it away somewhere anyway. So he took the young
snake home to his wife, not knowing that it would grow up into a
cattle-eating behemoth.
But even after realizing that they had adopted a python, the
elderly couple had no problem sharing their home with their pet, which
they consider more as a child. In the last seven years it has grown to
an impressive 3.7 meters and weighs around 120 pounds.
But experts say it’s still young and bound to get even bigger.
Still Shi and his wife are not concerned for their safety, and allow the
snake to freely slither around their home during the day.
It often sits on their laps as they watch TV together, or just
finds a comfortable spot and sits there like a good boy. In the evening,
the couple give the snake a warm bath, and before going to bed, they
take the python to his very own bedroom.
Apart from barring the windows to make sure their son, which they
named Shi Nanwang, doesn’t run off somewhere, Shi and his wife say
they’ve taken no precautions to protect themselves from the snake, and
swear that it has never once bitten them.
They did have a steel cage made for Nanwang, but only to serve as a
private enclosure during his six months hibernation period. When he
enters his long slumber at the beginning of winter, Shi fills the cage
with blankets and places the snake inside so they don’t disturb him by
mistake.
When asked if taking care of such a large snake is expensive, Shi
Jiming said that he spends half his monthly pension on it. Nanwang
currently eats about 8 live medium-sized chickens, or 5 large ones,
every 20 to 30 days.
The Chinese couple often take their snake son on outdoor walks
around their neighborhood, and say that even though their neighbors were
originally terrified of Nanwang, they soon realized it is very docile
and friendly. Many of the kids stop to pet it or have their pictures
taken with it.
“The python is very tame and listens to Shi Jimin,” one of Shi’s
neighbors told China News Service. “Everyone has watched it grow — just
like watching a child grow up.”
The elderly couple have two daughters, but they moved out of the
house a long time ago and have their own families now, so they won’t be
able to take care of Shi Nanwang if something happens to them.
Shi Jimin told reporters that he plans to give the snake to a zoo
when he becomes too old to take care of it, at which point the python
allegedly stopped moving and stayed in his lap quietly.
“Don’t worry, that would be some ten years away,” Shi said.
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