Mom and little brother started pounding on our door. The Ginger jumped up and I heard “SNAKE IN THE COOP” and he was gone. I’m not supposed to get up but momma bear adrenaline hit.
Mom was showing brother the babies since I’ve been too sick to go outside. She didn’t even see the snake curled around their feeder, my brother was like “um.. is that snake meant to be in there?”
The Ginger lobbed it’s head off while I frantically counted and recounted and kissed them all and tried not to cry like an idiot. Wrong time of the month for this s**t.
They were all screaming and unsettled so I tucked them under their bear after kisses (I was freaking out, okay) and they relaxed.
There was two SMALL gaps in the hardware cloth on either side of the longest back vent where the roll wasn’t long enough. One was 1x2 inches, the other was about 0.5x4 inches. I was going to stuff a shirt in them next time I went out but I thought NO WAY would a snake find that tiny gap that far off the ground. I feel so damn stupid.
If it didn’t get in there then it would have squeezed through a cloth part much lower down that wasn’t a gap, but wasn’t totally flush against the wall. It would have had to push the wire quite a bit.
We screwed patches over the gaps and tightened the loose bit. I do not see any way a snake could get in now, period. I’m terrified that I’m wrong.
