The famed clutch of python eggs warmly known as the “bread rolls” have successfully hatched.
Last week, local snake catcher Daniel Busstra’s photo of what looked like a carpet python hugging crusty pull-apart bread rolls, which were in fact python eggs, soon began trending.
Mr Busstra’s iPhone 14 picture and the story behind it was shared far and wide, and even made it into Australian Geographic. He has since also been approached by other publications and news companies about the photo.
But on Monday, Mr Busstra – aka Snake Catcher Dan – got the news he was waiting for: the baby bread roll snake eggs had hatched successfully.
He took to social media to tell his followers how the coastal carpet python and her eggs were doing.
His Facebook post got another strong audience engagement, with one person commenting how the remaining eggshells now looked like “a squashed hot cross bun”.
“I thought that was pretty funny,” Mr Busstra said.
“I was stoked and over the moon to hear the news and to share it, that’s the best overall result, for all the babies to hatch.”
Since the original picture hit the internet he said he’d had more than a hundred people asking for an update on the bread roll snake eggs.
“The response I’ve had from everyone has been really great – everyone loved it, it was all positive,” he said.
“It can be very hit and miss when you post something about snakes somewhere it’s not snake-related … because the mindset of ‘any good snake is a dead snake’ is still really real, but it’s not as strong as it used to be.
“I still hear someone saying every week, ‘Well I am not going to pay that fee, I am just going to kill the snake.’ We explain that it is illegal and dangerous and it still happens.
“Luckily there people out there, like other snake catchers and myself, who are trying to educate people and explain their importance and show their beautiful side, like my photo.”
Squashing concerns of whether the baby snakes would make it or not with the eggs fused together and far from white in colour, he explained how the “burnt” eggs were still healthy enough to do their job.
RELATED STORY: Snake catcher’s ‘bread roll’ picture goes viral
“It was pretty crazy, I had never seen a clutch that looked like that before,” he said.
“But I reached out to other professionals in the industry who had seen it before and it’s just the shell maybe getting a bit tougher to protect them from the exposed weather.
“If it didn’t get that crusty shell, the snakes inside probably would over-cook, burn out and die. It’s like a scab over the top helping them survive as they deal with all that extra sun.”
He explained what an unhealthy clutch of python eggs would look like.
“When you see a clutch that you should maybe be concerned about, the eggs will look shriveled, sucked in and not puffy,” he said.
“They almost look sundried, like what would happen to a grape in the sun.”
At a guess, Mr Busstra said there was probably about 12 to 15 baby snakes in the bread roll clutch, with usually one snake per egg.
“From what the homeowner said to me it looks like they all hatched,” he said.
“The snakes are on their own now, mum loses full interest. There is no protecting and no feeding, just ‘see you later I’ve done my job you are going to have to learn to fend for yourself’.”
Unfortunately, he said he would not be surprised if none of the babies make it to age two.
“It’s hard to say exactly, but I talk to a lot of people in this industry, and everyone says the same thing: their survival rate it really not great at all,” he said.
“Because everything eats these baby snakes, they have such an uphill battle to deal with,” he said.
“I’ve got mates who’ve had clutches on their properties and I’ve asked them ‘have you seen a snake yet?’ and none of them have seen the babies after the eggs have hatched.”
He said the hatching period of a python can take between 50 and 60 days, with mum staying on the eggs for the entire time, except to go and get some sun to help incubate the eggs.
“She won’t really do much else until those eggs hatch, then she will go and find a well-deserved meal,” he said.
SUBSCRIBE here now for our FREE news feed, direct to your inbox daily.
