Hello,
Second post...
I live on very rural property near Fredericksburg Virginia. I have an assortment of chickens and ducks that live in an old dirt floored woodshed I converted into a "chicken shack". They also have a welded wire enclosure with buried chicken wire at the bottom, and a chicken wire false top "chicken yard".
I've been having issues lately with reduced egg harvest and in the last 3 months I've caught killed four 6' or longer black snakes inside the coop or enclosed yard. I was getting 10-13 per day, and lately it's been a couple per day. I've been home a lot lately so I check hourly and I'm managing to get more eggs that way, but never a full complement like I feel I should.
I've had chickens & ducks for a few years, and I am accustomed to loss due to predation, I don't like it and that is why I've restricted them vs. their former free ranging. The point is I'm not completely a rookie here.
In addition to the egg predation, I've started losing birds. There was a mysterious one a couple weeks ago where a duck was just sitting inside the dead, stiff as a board, and I had been in the coop within 4- hours so I was very confused. NO blood, no visible to me marks, etc. She looked asleep with her head curled on her breast. I chalked it up to a snake bite or the hand of God (she was not that old, but she was adopted so I do not know her age).
Yesterday morning when I went to let them out and feed I found a Drake dead & stiff. There were no prints, but there was an odd smooth flat area in the dirt, also the drake was laying with the neck stretched out, and it was slimed all the way to the body.
I'm trained as an engineer, so this evidence, in my opinion, looks like a constrictor snake, killed the duck and attempted to eat it, but the drake was too big, so it regurgitated it. The "slime" was damp, and did not have a strong odor and the neck feathers were squished a bit, and clearly looked slimed. There was no visible blood, and there was evidence of "slime" on the dirt right at the head of the drake where it was laying deceased.
Am I crazy? Is here another logical explanation?
Thanks in advance for your time and attention,
MossFlower Woods.
Second post...
I live on very rural property near Fredericksburg Virginia. I have an assortment of chickens and ducks that live in an old dirt floored woodshed I converted into a "chicken shack". They also have a welded wire enclosure with buried chicken wire at the bottom, and a chicken wire false top "chicken yard".
I've been having issues lately with reduced egg harvest and in the last 3 months I've caught killed four 6' or longer black snakes inside the coop or enclosed yard. I was getting 10-13 per day, and lately it's been a couple per day. I've been home a lot lately so I check hourly and I'm managing to get more eggs that way, but never a full complement like I feel I should.
I've had chickens & ducks for a few years, and I am accustomed to loss due to predation, I don't like it and that is why I've restricted them vs. their former free ranging. The point is I'm not completely a rookie here.
In addition to the egg predation, I've started losing birds. There was a mysterious one a couple weeks ago where a duck was just sitting inside the dead, stiff as a board, and I had been in the coop within 4- hours so I was very confused. NO blood, no visible to me marks, etc. She looked asleep with her head curled on her breast. I chalked it up to a snake bite or the hand of God (she was not that old, but she was adopted so I do not know her age).
Yesterday morning when I went to let them out and feed I found a Drake dead & stiff. There were no prints, but there was an odd smooth flat area in the dirt, also the drake was laying with the neck stretched out, and it was slimed all the way to the body.
I'm trained as an engineer, so this evidence, in my opinion, looks like a constrictor snake, killed the duck and attempted to eat it, but the drake was too big, so it regurgitated it. The "slime" was damp, and did not have a strong odor and the neck feathers were squished a bit, and clearly looked slimed. There was no visible blood, and there was evidence of "slime" on the dirt right at the head of the drake where it was laying deceased.
Am I crazy? Is here another logical explanation?
Thanks in advance for your time and attention,
MossFlower Woods.
