snakes

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I was just browsing through this thread a few days ago and thinking, hmm... glad I don't have any snake problems...
This morning when I went to let my ladies out they didn't come bounding down the plank as is their custom. I went around the backside of the coop and opened the clean out hatch and lost and behold a texas rat snake had taken the girl my son named "Hen Solo"
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lindabean said:
I live South of Bandera, in the Texas Hill country. My parents bought it as a weekend/retirement place when I was in High School (I'll be 70 my next birthday). As a kid, I was all over this place on foot, and never saw a snake here till about 20 years ago. Now I live here full time with my husband, and we are trying our hand at raising chickens for our eggs. We've had our problems with predators, but never snakes till about a week ago. In the evening I looked in their roosting box and came face to face with a Texas Rat Snake! Knowing they are not poisonous, I banged on the bird house and he slithered away. Hubby found one tonight that seemed to have swallowed at least one egg. My little flock don't seem happy to share their little house with this guy, and I'm not either. Any suggestions on keeping this guy away? I'm guessing one thing to do would be to collect the eggs earlier in the day and not about sunset. The house is not very big, as we only have 4 chickens. We put a solar powered door on the house so they can get out to their pen at sun up, and the door shuts a little after sun set. The house is on stilts so we can access the nests easier and so it can have circulation in the hot summers we have almost 9 months a year down here. I'm wondering if we need to disassemble the house and build a different one as part of the floor is hardware cloth half inch squares. I guess the snake has just pushed a piece away from the frame in order to get in to the house. Appreciate any input as to how to get rid of or discourage the snake.
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I'd try putting some ceramic eggs (Cracker Barrel sells them) in your nest boxes. We've got brown egg layers so I put white ceramic eggs in the boxes. Figured that would give any snake a bad case of indigestion...

Since the rat snakes here don't seem interested in killing the rats (that currently live under the shed and refuse to eat poison or go in a trap) - those too large to be eaten by the chickens get a dose of .22 "snake shot" shotshells by CCI. If they actually kill the rat in the future, I'll reconsider my position on the snake shot.

 
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I know it is not a popular thing to say but, I HATE SNAKES< the only good ones are dead ones.. Anything that makes me scream that loud cannot be healthy to have around. I don't go looking to finish them off with my snake stick (an old hoe) but, if they invade my personal space - the fight is on. When I reach the point where anger overtakes dread fear, then I spring to action. My mom was a bigger screamer than me but, I could run faster.

In my life(nearly 68 years) I have seen many garden (garter snakes) etc. but, I have never seen them do anything to warrant a reprieve. Maybe they feel the same about me. But I have the stick.
 
I (a woman) have personally removed, by hand, 3 five foot black snakes from my coop, and relocated them about 20 miles away in an uninhabited wooded area. One snake I actually caught trying to eat an egg. The snakes were living up in the soffit of our coop. I think that they were coming into the coop through the automatic hen door. There really isn't any way to prevent them from entering as we need to leave the door open so that they hens have access to the nest boxes.

I was the second daughter to a father that I think wanted a son. I was raised to handle snakes, frogs, toads, bugs (not spiders, my Dad was arachnaphobic I think) fish etc. I know that most people get the heebie geebies from snakes.. I don't personally believe in killing snakes just because..they are or exist. Especially not non-venomous ones. They serve a purpose and are really the only rodent control we have where we live. We are overrun with voles, mice, moles and rats. We live in an area that produces grain crops. I wish more people could see the value of having snakes around. Oh..and they really aren't slimy.
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This snake was trying to get in my poult coop. I locked it up. How small of a hole can they get in? Should I have taken a shovel to it?
 

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