Snake!!! - Page 6

soe to hear about the baby birds the moth balls work well for us.

Oh my! That sounds so scary! I don't do snakes very well. My ducks eat them, so they're not a predator problem, but I still can't stand them! I know what you mean about the killing. I was so upset and guilty feeling both after my brother shot the raccoon and the opossum. I guess it all boils down to who you love most.

I can live with foxes and racoons and diseases and all the other natural things that come with raising chickens, but these snakes have me completely unnerved.  I'm too scared to even go in the chicken coop anymore.  I've found them under a hen squeezing the life out of her babies.  I have gotten hardly any eggs this summer and for the last two days it was down to none.  Earlier in the summer there was a large rat snake (over 6 feet) my neighbor killed in her coop that had been going back and forth from our hen houses.  I bought cats (5), guineas (6) and today to greet me was a rattlesnake.  The largest I had ever seen (even compared to those at the zoo).  I can't stop shaking and I don't think I will ever be able to step outside again.  I hate to do the mothballs for I know it can hurt my other animals if ingested.  I read about putting the moth balls in water bottles with holes in them so the smell gets out.  My husband wants me to get rid of all my chickens but I love them.  Help!!! What is the answer to get rid of snakes.  I've had chickens for several years but the snake thing is just getting worse and worse.