A DAD who bought an eight-inch python has seen it grow into an 18ft snake who feasts on deer and goats at the family home.

Marcus Hobbs, 31, keeps 17-stone Hexxie in a tank in his three-bedroom semi in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire.

Massive Hexxie is believed to the world's biggest ever Burmese python.

She eats rabbits, stillborn deer, calves, goats and pigs supplied by local farmers and produces a poo once a month large enough to fill a bin bag.

Marcus' wife, Amy, has come to terms with being second best to the serpent although still gripes about the space it takes up in their home.

The pet costs thousands of pounds to keep and could be lethal if mishandled, squeezing a human to death in minutes and swallowing them whole.

But Marcus is confident Hexxie will never strike – although doesn't get her out when the his boys, aged four and one, are around.

Marcus said: "I think people are so scared of snakes because they think they are going to kill them but if people come around I can talk to them all day long about snakes to reassure them.

"[But] I would not get her out with the boys around. I would only do it while they were in bed or another room.

"I don't think she'd be dangerous towards them but you have to use your common sense and I'm a responsible pet owner."

Experts say the biggest ever Burmese python was 18ft 8ins but Marcus think Hexxie is even bigger.

He says when he last measured his pet of eight years she was over 18ft – and has grown a lot since then.

But he's reluctant to anaesthetise her for the official measurement until she's stopped growing.

You have to use your common sense and I'm a responsible pet owner

He added: "I'm friendly with a reptile specialist and when I first got in contact with him to try and get some piglets for food he said: 'What have you got?'.

"When I sent him a picture he said she was the biggest Burmese python he had ever seen, and he's seen them in the wild.

"He said: 'You have got to measure her for the world record'. I measured her and she wasn't quite there yet but she's grown a lot since then.

"She could be there now. There is a possibility she's already a record breaker but finding out is not that easy."

Hexxie lives alongside another smaller snake, Monty, and the family dog Shiloh, a Husky.

Marcus said both snakes have gone for him before – although not for a while.

He added that the nearest Hexxie has come to attacking him was when he had to apply iodene to a skin infection.

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He said: "She went for me. Not properly – more of a back off, get away type of thing. She's nipped but she's never latched on.

"Her mouth is full of of hundreds of pin shaped teeth like fish hooks. If she gets hold of you, you cannot pull your hand out because all the teeth are going the wrong way.

"You would have to push your hand back into her mouth to unhook her teeth. If you pulled you would be pulling her teeth further into your skin."

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