Cursed to never have chickens....snake magnets.

[nirvanamike06]

About 2 years ago me and a couple buddies bought 100 chick's and my dog got in the brooder when I wasn't home and got all but a couple and when I put em outside they wouldn't roost in the coop so they eventually disappeared.

Last week I got 16 free week old chick's. The first night I ended up working all night and asked the wife to check on em and she didn't latch the door so I only had 6 chickens left. 4 were dead in the coop and 6 were just completely disappeared I figured it was a opossum or coon. I do have every predator known to man in my area so who knows what could have got em.

Well I went a whole week with the door properly latched and all 6 made it. I got a smoking good deal on 76 week old cornish rock chick's and split em with my buddy and when I got home I had one dead chick..... looks like a snake tried to get em but couldnt swallow him. the day before I killed about a 5+ ft rat snake in the coop and patched up any holes I could see. I normally see about 1 snake a week but since I've got the chickens I've seen 4-5 snakes all around the coop. Last night I went pretty crazy with the patching hopefully this will end the losses. My coop is pretty solid but around the bottom it was chicken wire so I replaced it with heavy gauge hardware cloth. I might try the sulfur around the coop to. Will it hurt the chickens if they got in it? If I come home to find another half swallowed chick I'm gonna have to start thinking I trapped a snake in the coop and he's invisible.

My buddy said if anymore chick's get killed on my watch he's gonna have to call animal cruelty on me. I might pick up a game cam and set it in there to.

 

[nirvanamike06]

This is the snake I killed. I pumped him full of rat shot from my .22 and all it did was get him fired up

This is the dead baby chick from pictures I've seen this looks like he was half swallowed? He was completely intact just slimy on the top half.

 

[junebuggena]

Chicks that young need a very secure coop/run, and they also need a heat source. Chicken wire, as you have learned the hard way, does not stop most predators.

 

[Maeschak]

About 2 years ago me and a couple buddies bought 100 chick's and my dog got in the brooder when I wasn't home and got all but a couple and when I put em outside they wouldn't roost in the coop so they eventually disappeared.

Last week I got 16 free week old chick's. The first night I ended up working all night and asked the wife to check on em and she didn't latch the door so I only had 6 chickens left. 4 were dead in the coop and 6 were just completely disappeared I figured it was a opossum or coon. I do have every predator known to man in my area so who knows what could have got em.

Well I went a whole week with the door properly latched and all 6 made it. I got a smoking good deal on 76 week old cornish rock chick's and split em with my buddy and when I got home I had one dead chick..... looks like a snake tried to get em but couldnt swallow him. the day before I killed about a 5+ ft rat snake in the coop and patched up any holes I could see. I normally see about 1 snake a week but since I've got the chickens I've seen 4-5 snakes all around the coop. Last night I went pretty crazy with the patching hopefully this will end the losses. My coop is pretty solid but around the bottom it was chicken wire so I replaced it with heavy gauge hardware cloth. I might try the sulfur around the coop to. Will it hurt the chickens if they got in it? If I come home to find another half swallowed chick I'm gonna have to start thinking I trapped a snake in the coop and he's invisible.

My buddy said if anymore chick's get killed on my watch he's gonna have to call animal cruelty on me. I might pick up a game cam and set it in there to.

I vote for the game cam! Not only can it show you what is IN the coop it can also show you what is trying to get in the coop. I was trying to catch a predator with a game cam - the game cam never caught sight of the weasel that was destroying my flock, but I found out that every single night 3 coons were trying to figure out how to get into the coop. And not just once in awhile, they were there every single night for hours and hours. Since I had the game camera pictures, I knew that after I hunted down 3 coons outside of the coop that I could take a break for awhile.

Anyway, good luck with your birds. Chicken predators can be a real menace.

 

[nirvanamike06]

Chicks that young need a very secure coop/run, and they also need a heat source. Chicken wire, as you have learned the hard way, does not stop most predators. 

Yea the hardware cloth definitely secured it up. But apparently the snakes can still find a crack somewhere to get in. The only place I see they could get in is from the roof where the rafters come through there is some really small holes so I boarded them up last night. This morning they were all still alive.

I was using the eco glow 20s because I had a house fire years ago and it permanently scarred me from anything that could potentially catch on fire but with this amount of chickens i could only find the cord for one of my ecoglows glows so I had to break down and use a heating lamp and it's double chained and I used steel wire to make an extra attachment loop in case the factory loop failed.

In this texas heat they don't seem to care much for the heat lamp anyways though. Temps are above 90s during the day and in the 80s at night. They do get under the eco glow though.

 

[nirvanamike06]

2 more dead this morning.... one didn't have any signs of what could have got him so maybe he just croaked but the other looked slimy on his top half but was covered in ants. Still no sighting of the snake....

I got lazy and didn't put the game cam up with everything going smooth and me thinking they were big enough a snake wouldn't mess with them anymore. It's going in and I'm gonna spray foam any cracks I can find.

I wish this dang snake would swallow one up so he'd be stuck inside and I could kill it....

 

[Maeschak]

2 more dead this morning.... one didn't have any signs of what could have got him so maybe he just croaked but the other looked slimy on his top half but was covered in ants. Still no sighting of the snake....

I got lazy and didn't put the game cam up with everything going smooth and me thinking they were big enough a snake wouldn't mess with them anymore. It's going in and I'm gonna spray foam any cracks I can find.

I wish this dang snake would swallow one up so he'd be stuck inside and I could kill it....

Have you got a minnow trap? I read (and tried, but no luck) that if you put eggs in a minnow trap the snake will go in, eat the eggs, and cant get out because the hole size of the minnow trap is too small. Might be worth a try.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Frabill-Minnow-Trap-Vinyl-Black/16494423

 

[nirvanamike06]

That's not a bad idea I've got a perch trap at the house. It's pretty much the same thing this is just a big square vs a cylinder like that one. I guess it wouldn't hurt to set it outside the coop. I just bought a dozen eggs so it's happening when I get home.

 

[Maeschak]

That's not a bad idea I've got a perch trap at the house. It's pretty much the same thing this is just a big square vs a cylinder like that one. I guess it wouldn't hurt to set it outside the coop. I just bought a dozen eggs so it's happening when I get home.

Awesome, hope it works. I read some guy caught a snake a day for like a week or so using this method- so keep after them!