snakes!!!repelent???

[chilling in muscadine]

Quote:
I'm so sorry for your loss. What a snake does with its tongue is use to taste and to pick up on heat/movement from its prey. Sometimes a snake will kill something to large for it to swallow. Not often though. Did you check your chicks body for puncture marks? This would be from a venomous snake. If it didn't have them then the chick would have been constricted, cutting off its airway. Snakes don't chew but swallow there prey whole.

If your chick was just all wet and slimy feeling around the head and neck than it could have very well been a snake that couldn't swallow it. If there was other damage to the chick than you may be dealing with something else. If its not to painful to talk about give me as much details as you can remember and I will try and help you figure it out.

I don't want to upset you but the snake has found a food source and it will not leave on its on.

 

[Punk-Rock_Chicken]

Quote:
I'm so sorry for your loss. What a snake does with its tongue is use to taste and to pick up on heat/movement from its prey. Sometimes a snake will kill something to large for it to swallow. Not often though. Did you check your chicks body for puncture marks? This would be from a venomous snake. If it didn't have them then the chick would have been constricted, cutting off its airway. Snakes don't chew but swallow there prey whole.

If your chick was just all wet and slimy feeling around the head and neck than it could have very well been a snake that couldn't swallow it. If there was other damage to the chick than you may be dealing with something else. If its not to painful to talk about give me as much details as you can remember and I will try and help you figure it out.

I don't want to upset you but the snake has found a food source and it will not leave on its on.

A snake DOES use its tongue to "smell", instead of inhaling air past an olfactory (smell receptors) like mammals such as dogs, racoons, etc;. The snake picks up sent with its tongue. There are two openings on the roof of the snake's mouth. They lead to a very sensitive spot called the Jacobson's organ. The snake touches its tongue to this organ, rubbing off the scents it has collected. The organ checks out the smells and sends a message to the brain. Then the snake knows if a meal, mate, or enemy is nearby. And a snake is most definatly repelled by certain oders. Especially Moth-Balls! Just drop a few into your snakes cage and see what happens. And a snake WILL move on if repelled. And HEAT is picked up by "pit vipers" only. That is what the "pit" is. Pit vipers have developed special organs of heat reception that help them to sense warm-blooded animals, an ability that is especially useful at night, when many of them hunt. These organs consist of pits located just behind the nostrils and covered with a temperature-sensitive membrane... Please try not to give out the wrong information. It usually only frightens people even more. I have been a snake handler for over 20 years, and am constantly having to re-educate people because someone else that was "supposed" to know something, was wrong. Even when it is with good intentions.

 

[redhen]

I dread finding a snake in my coop! Do ALL snakes eat eggs? What breeds of snakes are the egg eaters, and what breeds will actually eat the birds?

 

[maus]

I am going to give the mothball idea a try too. My hay shed is very near the coop, and when cleaning it last week I had to relocate 4 Yellow Rat Snakes. I also find them in the coop, in the nest box under the hay, and in the rafters of the coop. And they get to the eggs before I get home from work, so I am only getting 1 or 2 eggs a day out of 13 laying hens. I do like snakes but jeez... I feel like I am providing an all-you-can-eat buffet here...

 

[novice sue]

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Dear Punk Rock Chicken, I am a novice so have spent hours reading the wonderful information here. I also have some books, one, The Chicken Health Book by Gail Damerow on page 139, under poisoning- she lists mothballs first as being toxic to chickens and a cause of death.
There was someone else using moth balls also so would love to hear from you both or any one who has a good method for using the moth balls-.

I have a snake problem here with oak and copperheads and have become ok with a snake stick- if its not poisonous i try to relocate- but sometimes i just get mad and end it.
I did have 1 oak snake that had 2 quails in its gut and one in the mouth when i killed it.

I have used sticky traps for one 6 footer that liked to climb my wall at the kitchen door-

;when i caught it, i took the board upon which i had stapled the sticky traps, and my veggie cooking oil out to the back forest, poured the oil on the snake and board--got back in the car and watched him wiggle loose as the oil softened the glue.