Meet the parents of a python

 

A family in China has adopted a special ‘child’, who, they say will take care of them in their old age. In Haikou, China’s Hainan Province, 68-year-old Shi Jimin and his wife have been sharing their home with a 60 kilogram, 3.7-metre-long python for seven years!

 

 

Shi Nanwang, their adoptive son, enjoys quite a cushy life. Like any normal child the fearsome reptile slithers around their home through the day, watches television or just sits in his favourite corner of the room. In the evening, the python gets a warm bath and then sleeps in its very own bedroom. Shi Nanwang is pretty popular in the neighbourhood, children love to take selfies with him and the neighbours say he is a very docile snake. So far so good.

 

 

Shi Jimin happened to rescue the python when it was a baby. He adopted the python in 2009 when his local fish and snake vendor did not have a buyer for the small 30cm snake. In China, snakes are eaten as a delicacy and in many parts of the world they are raised a pets. Pythons are large non-venomous snakes who rarely attack humans unless provoked. They kill their prey by constricting its breathing. Most snakes weigh between 260-300 pounds and in captivity can live upto 40 years! At present Shi Nanwang is 120 pounds and is bound to get bigger.

 

Image source:ecns.cn

 

The couple told a Chinese website that they needed no protection from their son and all they have done is bar the windows. Shi Jimin has no problem in spending half his monthly pension in facilitating the python’s diet. Nanwang currently eats about 8 live medium-sized chickens, or 5 large ones, every 20 to 30 days. When he enters his long slumber at the beginning of winter, Shi fills the cage with blankets and lets him sleep there undisturbed.

 

 

What will happen when Shi Jimin is unable to feed him anymore, is anyone’s guess. Shi Jimin plans to give the python to the zoo in a good 10 years from now.