Our First Loss

[daddykirbs]

We've been the proud owners of a new home with chickens now for 3 months. Everything has been great until the other day.

We bought 3 baby Silkies to have something different and cute. The babies lived on the backporch in a large box for about 6 weeks. Then we bought some Wyandots... they went in the box and the Silkies "moved on up" to the brooder cage in the coop.

I went out the next day to water all the chickens to find that we only had 2 Silkies. They were huddled together in the corner... then I noticed a very large FAT rat snake laying in the water bowl. He was skinny enough to get in, but too fat to get out!

With much hesitation I took direction from my wife to kill the snake. Her logic was that it now knows where the food it and he'll come back.

 

[georgiagail]

Same thing happened to me with a flight cage of canaries I put out one afternoon.

The next day I went out early to check their feed and water. It was barely light (around 6:30 am); I noticed the canaries were all huddled at the top of the flight cage....and there seemed to be fewer of them than the night before.

Opening the cage I came face to face with a rat snake strung out along the perch, all fat and happy. He'd gotten in but couldn't get out.

After he was killed, a necropsy I did showed five canaries in his belly, all head to toe.

I actually have nothing against snakes but I can't imagine the terror those canaries felt all night long, trying to get away from this fellow.

Gail

 

[cat1994]

I lost three lil call ducklings to a black rat snake that was over 6 ft long! I had just gotten home (hadn't even stepped out of the car yet) when I heard my broody duck yelling at the top of her lungs, I could tell something was up right away so I ran all the way down to the duck house as fast as I could. I ripped open the door to the coop and saw my lil white call duck herding all her ducklings to one corner then turning around and charging at this huge black snake in the other corner, trying to throw her self between him and one of her ducklings he was trying to eat. He was so distracted he didn’t even notice me until I grabbed him behind the head. I yanked him up causing him to drop the duckling in his mouth, unfortunately he had already killed it, I then killed him right then an there (don't want to say how it was rough and pretty graphic) he had two other fat places in him from the two ducklings he had eaten before I had got home. I was so sad but even more mad!

 

[FlatRoofer]

Sorry for your loss. I know how it feels, we had moved into a new house that we had built some years ago. And we brought all our chickens from our old hose to our new place. We should have waited and built a chicken coop first. We figured we would have enough time get it built, but we were wrong. The owls had a feast every nite until just about none were left. It was a hard lesson but we never did it again. I would like to say congrats on the killing the snake and she was right it would have came back until there was none left.

 

[openheartnp]

Oh I'm sorry for your loss! It stinks to have to consider even the tiniest of openings as a way for predators to get in! I like most animals, but c'mon! We chicken peeps need a break! I lost "Vengeance" the hen last year to a coyote-at 10:30 in the morning! Now, we have to be outside if they are free ranging, they go in a pen if we go inside with the windows open to hear them, and locked in a chainlink kennel with wire fencing on top and bottom if we leave by car.

 

[Fussy8]

WOW this freaks me out!!! My chickens coop has a hole in the ceiling where an owl or snake could easily get in!!! AHHH!!

 

[daddykirbs]

Here is a video of the incident. It's silly, but...

There are images of the dead snake and the chick that was removed from the snakes belly... so, be warned.