The 'Black Hole'

This morning Bianca rushed back from the 'Fort Knox' of all chocken coops in a wild panic: Bimbo lay dead and strangely elongated in a corner!

When I checked, I advanced the hypothesis that the second-last of two survivors, so far, of the diamond python had been tackled and half-eaten, but regurgitated for being too big, already...

I picked up the wet little corpse and gave it to Bianca to hold while I scouted for the culprit - no trace 0f the snake.

Since it absolutely couldn't have got in, Bianca speculated that Bimbo died in an accident, falling into a water pan and drowning.

I went around the back of the chookhouse fortress and prised loose some fibre cement decorative fascias.

There was the python, which I've since named "the Black Hole" because it swallows anything that comes near it...

I put TBH in a feed sack and took her/him to a wildlife person, it will propably remain in exile.
Then we dashed to the nearest big town by a 100 km round-about route, trying to find a companion or two for the now sole survivor, Uschi.

There were lots of Lowans at point of lay, I was told on the phone - but when we reached the pet shop at 11:30 or so, only five remained, and these were earmarked as 'on hold' for a woman who was to come from 200 km away.

We returned empty-handed and desolate - I opened a bottle of Western Australian Semillon Sauvignon Blanc and held a wake for Bimbo...

Now it's back to the chicken fortress to build further defences, even though TBH is safely away at the wildlife refuge.

Such is life...

NB: The lone survivor, Uschi, is coping - but never straying too far from stepmother Phebe, ducking from being pecked by the latter when she gets too close. Bianca still mourns with this perhaps 12-week-old youngster, who's had her 'childhood' so brutally shattered...