Black Snake entering run

[jhook1997]

We saw our black snake entering our chicken run last week. He's been living here for many years.....way before we had chickens. He usually stays in our lumber pile then goes in our building when he sheds. Anyway, we heard the chickens squawking

and looked in.....snake on the way! I don't want to kill him (but will if he starts on the eggs!) What I heard was that putting lime around the fence would discourage snakes because the don't want to cross it. Any thoughts or advice about this or other ways to keep out snakes?

 

[southerndesert]

Hardware cloth will help, but they are good climbers. We have a couple large Gopher snakes on our property that have also been here for many years and they so far have no bothered chicken or egg. One is about 6 feet and will let you walk right up and pick him up, the other is about 5 feet and just as friendly. We figure if one of them ever gets an egg or two it will be worth it for all the rats and mice they eat here.

 

[turbodog]

I agree with southerndesert, hardware cloth and close all gaps. It'll still probably managed to slide in somewhere but as he said too, I don't mind the thought of giving up the occasional egg to such a good rat killer.

Lime won't work and it's caustic besides.

edit: Agricultural lime won't hurt the chickens. I was thinking about hydrated lime, like you would use in making whitewash.

Here's an older article on snake repellents:
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/v...ewdcc2&sei-redir=1#search="lime deter snakes"

 

[MiniBeesKnees]

It looks messy but works, and is cheap...get some plastic bird netting. The kind you wrap fruit trees up to protect the fruit from birds. They nose through the holes like they nose through grass and get caught in it...they cannot back out of the holes. I just bunch it up and put it around the bottom of the fencing. I discovered this when I found dead snakes...or shed skins...in a pile of netting I'd thrown aside and left for a few days. They apparently think they can get through it and do not bother to try to climb over it. Once through a hole or two their scales cause them to become entrapped and they can't back out of the holes...and that netting is a lot stronger then you'd think. So you end up with a snake caught in a big pile of netting It can't crawl away with. What you do with the snake after that is up to you.