OMG...Dont put your hand in the nesting box!!!

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I actually grabbed an egg from under the nest one day- with yellow rat snake attached. Nearly had heart failure! We seem to have huge numbers this year, 10 already relocated and another stealing eggs now. Seems there is a nest in the roofline of the house. All have been 4-6' long, so they're adults. We're just waiting for the babies......
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DH and I have become quite the snake catching team. One late afternoon we caught a big one and DH was going to drop him off on his way to work. He forgot it. I felt so sorry for the poor dude out in the heat that I brought the bucket into the LR for the day. NEVER would have thought I would do that, but I did. Dogs and cats were mesmerized all day!
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On our property, the good snakes are tolerated until they get too clever and confident, then they got to a nature preserve. Venomous snakes get killed. So far this year, just one canebrake rattler.

My avatar, a bantam Cochin, is oblivious to snakes. Here's the whole avatar pic before I cropped it, click on it to enlarge.

 
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A dozen or so eggs is probably a cheep price to pay for all the good blacksnakes do. When I was a kid my Poppy used to catch them and put them around his barn and out buildings to eat rats and mice. They ate the occasional eggs too but like I said, worth it. We had one that lived around our house for years but I've not seen it in awhile. No idea how long black snakes live, he/she have died of old age...
 
That's true. We have never had a mouse or rat problem, even with chicken feed out 24/7. The rat snakes even eat the big Palmetto bugs, the state bird of SC.
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Black snakes are very common in my area of Va. I tolerate them as long as they are not around my chicken coop. They do get big( 6ft!) and had one invade a nest box where a Belgium Quail D'Anver hen was setting. He had thrown a couple of coils around her and had swallowed her whole head when I happen to find him. Needless to say I did relocate him some distance from the house- minus HIS head! They will not only eat eggs but baby chicks from under a hen as well. They also have quite an attitude, altho not poisonous they will come after you sometimes if they feel threatened! A good farm dog usually keeps the area around the house snake free.
 

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