Do rat snakes eat young pullets?

[Egg_cited]

Last year I had two massive rat snakes come into the coop. The coop was temporary and made out of chicken wire so no wonder they got in. They didn't grab the adult birds just the eggs.

Now we have a run made out of hardware cloth and cement at the bottom.
My neighbor just saw two at his coop around a week ago.
My question is do rat snakes eat pullets? I know they eat like the baby baby chicks. But how bout young pullets? Like around 4-8 weeks? Even though you can call my run "snake proof" I just don't know if I'm comfortable leaving them there.

 

[Lor]

If the snake is big enough it can.
Here you see a snake eating a cornish cross which would be a big chick.

 

[Battlepants]

4 week chicks are pretty large, so probably safe. One slightly morbid way to look at it - if a chick can't fit through the holes in the coop, a chick inside a snake likely couldn't fit through the holes in the coop. So ultimately, as long as the holes are small enough so only small snakes can get in there, you are probably safe.

 

[Egg_cited]

4 week chicks are pretty large, so probably safe. One slightly morbid way to look at it - if a chick can't fit through the holes in the coop, a chick inside a snake likely couldn't fit through the holes in the coop. So ultimately, as long as the holes are small enough so only small snakes can get in there, you are probably safe.

Thank you! This definitely calmed me down lol. Me and my family are trying to do as much as we can to keep the run "snake proof." The holes are very tiny so I don't think will get any massive ones and hopefully no small ones either.

 

[nuthatched]

They could if the snake is big enough.

 

[dpHenHouse]

Last year I had two massive rat snakes come into the coop. The coop was temporary and made out of chicken wire so no wonder they got in. They didn't grab the adult birds just the eggs.

Now we have a run made out of hardware cloth and cement at the bottom.
My neighbor just saw two at his coop around a week ago.
My question is do rat snakes eat pullets? I know they eat like the baby baby chicks. But how bout young pullets? Like around 4-8 weeks? Even though you can call my run "snake proof" I just don't know if I'm comfortable leaving them there.

I have been overrun with grey rat snakes this year. I had my 8 week old chicks up on my covered deck in a dog kennel run wrapped with what I thought was small enough plastic fencing. When I went out in the morning I noticed one of my chicks dead and under one of the footed waterers. Head was slimy thought other chicks picked it to death (I later learned on another forum that was classic snake regurgitating something too big for it to swallow). The next evening I went out to check on baby girls and make sure they went to roost, when I saw the grey rat snake s-l-o-w-l-y squeezing through the plastic fencing I was "sure" too small for them to get through. See pic. What I've learned is that even though the first baby girl was too big for it to swallow, once they know they're there the snake will return and try again, night after night. Needless to say, my baby girls are now in the big coop next to the big girls ... the coop sits inside an outer coop and run, both of which are surrounded with 1/4" hardware cloth 36" high. Hopefully that will keep the snakes at bay and my girls safe.

 

[CapricornFarm]

It doesn't matter how big the snake is, it may constrict and kill chickens any size if it is hungry. Then try to swallow, and not succeed. But the chicken will be dead.

 

[Peds cancer doc]

Sadly, we have now lost our 3 roosters, the last a silkie who was a great daddy, but the others very large adult roosters. No evidence of anything when my husband found them dead on the coop floor. We had noticed a smaller maybe 3-4 foot blackish/gray snake hanging around our porch a few days before the first rooster was killed but thought there was no way she could kill a big rooster. At this point, however, we are pretty sure it must been the snake and that the roosters were defending their flocks when the snake got into the coop probably to eat eggs, and the snake, being confronted, must have strangled them. Breaks my heart as the rooster’s did such a good job. We even had a baby silkie on one side of the coop who was safe and secure thanks to her daddy. My hubby is out trying to find the snake right now so we can relocate it. We are beating ourselves up for not thinking of the snake sooner cause the first 2 were big ol roosters. : ( So don’t think that even small snakes will not kill big chickens because they will, even though they can’t eat them. I am so sorry it took us so long to figure this out!

 

[ashcons]

We lost a sweet adult bantam to a snake sometime between lockup and this morning. The telltale sign of snake predation will be the chicken's head/neck being wet and slimy because the snake tries to eat it, but the bird was too big and snake had to regurgitate it.