Possible snake eating eggs?

[CuzChickens]

Hello fellas!

Soooo. I have been getting 9 eggs a day, last week, I got 3 one day, no evidence, just gone, then I have been getting 7-8 egg/a day ever since then. Are there any other possibilities as to what this could be? I do not think a chicken in eating them, because they would leave a mess and probably a shell, there is no evidence. TIA

 

[limited25]

The black plastic netting you put over small fruit trees to save the fruit from the birds make a good "catcher' for snakes. Open the package and unfold the netting. Kinda twist it and string it out along the bottom of your coop/pen. The snakes will crawl into it but cannot get out. I once avoided looking at an area in the feed shed awhile because of the awful smell (I thought it might be one of the neighbor's feral cats), and when I finally brought myself to pull it out, I found FIVE big black snakes caught in the netting the pack rats had pulled off the shelving. All but one were dead, and the fifth one became so.

The above paragraph was posted by BetsyOK on the Okies III thread. It is post 66635 of 66774. It is the best advise I know.

 

[carlf]

Quote: Did you see a large snake around?
Snakes are the last thing that comes to my mind.

7-8 eggs from how many hens?
And how old are they?
Might just be normal production or maybe a hen or two is hiding eggs.

 

[CuzChickens]

Did you see a large snake around?
Snakes are the last thing that comes to my mind.

7-8 eggs from how many hens?
And how old are they?
Might just be normal production or maybe a hen or two is hiding eggs.

They are approximately 35 weeks old, I have not seen a snake, but snakes are very common where I live and they are currently positioned about 2 feet away from a building he could be living under, I am sure nobody is hiding eggs, I check the run daily for hidden eggs and there are never any. I have 19 hens that should supposedly be laying, I think a I still have 9 that need to start laying.

[COLOR=333333]The black plastic netting you put over small fruit trees to save the fruit from the birds make a good "catcher' for snakes.  Open the package and unfold the netting.  Kinda twist it and string it out along the bottom of your coop/pen.  The snakes will crawl into it but cannot get out.  I once avoided looking at an area in the feed shed awhile because of the awful smell (I thought it might be one of the neighbor's feral cats), and when I finally brought myself to pull it out, I found FIVE big black snakes caught in the netting the pack rats had pulled off the shelving.  All but one were dead, and the fifth one became so.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=333333]The above paragraph was posted by BetsyOK on the Okies III thread.  It is post 66635 of 66774.  It is the best advise I know.[/COLOR]

Thank you for the reply! I just might try that!

 

[carlf]

I would agree that if you have 19 35-week old hens, you should be getting more than 7-9 eggs per day.
More like 10-15/day if they were all laying. 4-5 eggs per week is normal for most hens.

Have you seen the snake? A snake that is eating that many eggs will be very fat, full and not very mobile. And I still don't see a snake coming in & eating that many eggs every day for a week straight, especially if you haven't actually seen it in the coop.



Keep us posted.

 

[CuzChickens]

Ok, so yesterday, all morning long, I went out to the coop every 30 minutes, hoping to either catch him in the act, or just get the eggs before he could. I never saw him, but I think being out there so much might have made him feel uneasy about going out in the open when he knew there were humans out there very often. Then all afternoon, I was in the run dusting chickens for lice, because I had an outbreak of lice. I got 10 eggs yesterday. So I am thinking something has to be getting them, because the one day I patrolled the coop all day, I got 10 eggs. If you do not think it is a snake, what do you think it is?

 

[CuzChickens]

Today I was a little bit more lax about checking for eggs and I got 6.

 

[carlf]

Time to get a game camera and mount it so it can take pictures of your nest boxes..

 

[CuzChickens]

I borrowed one from my neighbor. I will set it up today after I clean the coop.