HEY! Where's my EGGS??

[Dances with Ducks]

When I open the duck house every morning my three wonderful hens have all laid one egg each, just like clockwork. Sometimes the Welsh Harlequin lays a tiny bit later, but rarely. The Runner laid an egg one morning and then another just before being put to bed that night. That was about a week after she had resumed laying after hatching out a clutch of ducklings. The Khaki Campbell is always on schedule, I think she lays in the middle of the night.

So this morning NO EGGS!! From any of them! I thought they must be playing some kind of joke on me!

The Welsh finally did cough up her egg midmorning - but nothing from the other two so far.
No change in feed or anything else I can think of. I checked the bushes to see if they could have laid in there last night but that seems so unlike the Khaki Campbell, and I found nothing. I can't get behind the woodpile, but still. Only thing different was I had been turning on the electric fence every night for a while while I worked out a problem with a lock, could they have been scared by a predator? When they were visited once by a raccoon they still laid. And they didn't seem afraid at all this morning.
Any ideas?

 

[TexasVet]

It's possible that a snake has found itself a good source of eggs. I was collecting fewer and fewer eggs, until the day I went out extra early and found a 4' long snake gorging itself on my eggs.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.CountryChickens.com

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Snakes are getting my chicken eggs now. They would LOVE to get a duck egg!

 

[Dances with Ducks]

We do have garter snakes! How do you keep them out of a duckhouse? The door shuts pretty tight but with a snake - I don't know - they're so skinny. But if it got an egg I don't see how it could get out?

 

[swheat]

A friend of mine keep those smooth river rocks (about the size of eggs) in all his poultry pens for those snakes that like to eat eggs. I don't know if it really works but he swears by them.

 

[TexasVet]

I don't think garter snakes eat eggs, but rat snakes sure do. I caught two of them by accident by leaving some tangled up bird netting near the entrance to the coop. The snake got all tangled up in it and died before I found them... and one of them had two large lumps about 1/2 way down.

There's a really disgusting post on here somewhere showing 6 or 7 snakes caught in the same kind of trap. If you search for "snake trap" you can probably find it.

Kathy, Bellville TX
www.CountryChickens.com

 

[Dances with Ducks]

I'm pretty sure that was a garter snake I saw a two months ago, and it was really big around. I tried to find out what other kind of snake that looks like it lives in this area, but there was nothing else. I hope you are right that it wasn't that garter, but maybe it's another snake I've never seen before.
The door doesn't shut as tight as I thought, might be enough room for a decent sized snake. Also saw how they could get in through the ventalation opening. . . . sigh!

 

[Eggs4Sale]

I don't know if it would work, but has anyone tried leaving some store-bought eggs out with the duck eggs? Maybe the snake will go for the easier ones????

 

[Dances with Ducks]

So I've been reading about snakes today, look at the pics at the bottom of this page, they can go just about anywhere:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=177426&p=2
Here is a snake trap: http://www.cuent.com/cue%20%20folder/pdf's/Howto-snake%20netting.pdf
Someone suggested rolling up that netting and staking it around your hen house. This trap won't kill the snake, just catches it.
Someone else suggested empting an egg and filling it with salt so the snake would eat it. Snakes have eaten golf balls and wooden eggs.
So I guess I'm off to the hardware store.

 

[headred]

I live in town and have virtually no snakes. My 3 hens do the same thing. Some days I only get one egg and most days I get three. Can anyone answer what would make hens lay regularly and then skip a day or so?