How Do I Trap A Black Snake?

[can you hear me now?]

thanks i will do that. seems like a logical solution being that cotton mouths and blacksnakes are around the same size.

 

[Jplejeune]

I line my pens with a net. Its the same net that is used to keep birds off of growing plants. I found this out because i had some laying around in the yard for 2 days and found 2 snakes in it. Since i have done this i havent had any snakes get into my coops but find them entangles in the net all the time

 

[vbgarden]

We're going to try the netting this evening. We've lost a number of chicks and it's something that can get through the 2" coop fence openings and not the finer mesh that lines the doors. We've had black snake and raccoon problems with our coop before - always summers when when the field behind us is in field corn. Our theory is that the corn provides cover for the 'coons (and that they are following the food source) and that the snakes are following rodents..... Nonetheless, when you've been raising chicks and they continue to get killed... you lose patience and sympathy for the predator. The last time this happened, we caught the large black snake over and over, catching and releasing him into neighboring woods until finally we gave up and offed him. Later a wildlife experienced friend explained that we should have taken him over the river (inland waterway) to the other side, saying that the snake would not have bothered or been able (not sure which) to cross that moving water to get back.

The first time we caught that particular snake, he was curled up under a setting hen, in her nest full of eggs, with an egg in his mouth. As I irately pounced on it, my husband, who loathes snakes, kept frantically warning me that the snake was going to bite me. I held up the snake and pointed to the large egg crammed in his mouth. "Not likely!" I explained, laughing.

This time, we've lost eggs, newby chicks and now, finally, the remaining 6-week old chick, now 2/3 grown. It couldn't get this larger chick down, apparently, just strangled it and had to leave it.

Our comparison is that none of the chicks born earlier to our banties - born when the corn was small - had any problems at all and they are almost fully grown. However, I'm done taking chances. We're going to try it ALL - mowing the perimeter very closely and putting down "flour" (I'm probably going to use DE) to check possible tracks, golf balls in the coop and next AND the twisted netting. I have Tree Tanglefoot for our orchard trees and I may coat a board with some of that and try that, too.

We are also in Virginia (Virginia Beach) and the hot, hot weather may be a factor (low prey levels?) but we've had more rain than most and the corn and other cover is pretty lush. We usually see heightened attacks by coons and possums now - babies are no longer nursing but need to be fed.

But, enough is enough!
We are forced to counterstrike.
Most of the measures allow us an opportunity to snatch and release..... but I refuse to have more of my beloved chooks perish if I can stop it!!!!
Determinedly,
VBGarden

 

[BeccaB00]

well. its going to be back if you just relocate it. It knows where food is. You may be better off to just shoot it.
but I understand that some people wouldnt want to do that.

We have relocated many snakes but we do away with any snake that gets in our chicken pens. All the ones we relocate are exremely small ones and arent messing with our chickens.

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

A snake isn't like a coon or possum - if you move it down the road a good couple miles IF it ever comes back it will be a good while - they don't have the greatest sense of direction, 1 and two snakes are lazy creatures by nautre (most). They are ambush predators, and black snakes do travel and go in search of food - but they aren't going to travel over long distances if there is mice, frogs, birds, etc in the woods or fields that you re-locate it too. IF it ever comes back - think maybe next spring/summer.

A coon or possum or something similar - they are SMART and they have a good little processor for a brain and will remember where food is, and go back for MILES - racoons have been known to return 15 miles + from where they are relocated to get back to their home range or a food source. Snakes aren't going to go out of their way to return to a coop 4 miles away when they have a decent supply of food right in front of them.

They only travel any real distance when food is sparse and breeding season.

 

[vbgarden]

Thanks, Becca - thanks, Boo -- Yep, we kept relocating it, over and over and over, and it really did come back -- took a couple of weeks but it did -- until we finally had to kill it. I really will try the across-the-water thing and will let the group know if I think it worked. Right now there are two lights lit outside (probably something we should've considered from the get-go), rat-traps at the back door and... well, we're waiting. Inerestingly, the adolescent peacock, who is practically nocturnal anyway, is quite fascinated by the lighting and I've spent the last two hours being chewed to shreds by mosquitoes while we sat together and "clicked" about the lights. He was so very much more close to me than during the day that I realized how much he doesn't like roosting alone. He roosts inside the run but outside the coop which is, frankly, just too small for him. But he considers it carefully every night. Sometimes the banty young'uns who grew up this summer with him around hang out and sit on his platform with him. He's so gentle, he's been carefully stepping over them in the big run since they were about the size of quarters. Just a love. Lord, I do hope he's big enough that nothing short of a bear will come after him but I love him dearly and will personally arm-wrestle any snake or mammal that wants him for dinner. I feel like Marlin Perkin's assistant, Jim, and the anaconda -- don't suppose there's any one else here old enough to remember Mutual of Omoha's TV program "Wild Kingdom" and Jim frantically wrestling with some Amazon water python while Marlin Perkin's was calmly over-voicing, "Welll, Jim seems to be having a bit of a problem here....."

One of the highlights of my childhood TV watching.

 

[wsdareme]

Quote:
Ummm, that used to be one of my favorite shows. And I remember that episode in particular. Showing our age, aren't we.

 

[Pam Allan]

I've finally gotten to where I can just reach down and grab the snake's head and pick it up - I got a 6 foot rat snake the other day. Moved it across the street and it got killed coming back. I didn't want anything bad to happen. Didn't know they would come back. Next time I'll try to take it way way away.....And away from a highway. I'm out in the country so it wouldn't be that bad to drive somewhere several miles out. I HATE killing anything.

 

[drumstick diva]

I remember Marlin Perkins, I loved that show - I was an animal lover since birth, and it was fascinating for a kid to see everything . My parents didn't give a hoot for it.

 

[Afrochicken]

I'd kill the snake, unless its protected. well atleast my step dad would

good luck!