Rat Snake ate Ceramic Egg!

[trudyg]

Back atcha with the Roll Tide! We're neighbors, I'm also in North AL, right in the middle about a mile from the line.

 

[Chickassan]

@RollTideChicken Omg! Im not the only person to roll stuff out of snakes,good on you man.

 

[N F C]

This has to be one of the most interesting threads I've come across all day.

My DS is a herpetologist and he is so going to enjoy these stories!

 

[RollTideChicken]

Back atcha with the Roll Tide! We're neighbors, I'm also in North AL, right in the middle about a mile from the line.

Cool! Yea I'm just south of ya then. I'm square in the middle about 6 miles (as a crow flies) south of the line.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

This thread has the nuts and bolts on how to keep predatory snakes under control.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...deal-with-snake-problems.515899/#post-6560315

 

[happyfrenchman]

I've had ceramic eggs go missing. I always figured the snake would regurgitate it, but, from reading here... maybe not. I usually take them for a drive but there are always more. I had one that killed a small pullet. He did not go for a drive. You would really have to like snakes to massage the egg out of one. Those snakes will bite and it hurts. (another one that did not get the car ride). They stink too. I would write off the egg. Also I believe those snakes are protected here in Ga. (Roll Tide!!!)

 

[Ridgerunner]

When we took the Boy Scout troop to a summer camp in northern Alabama, Camp Comer, one of the host kids was into snakes. He caught a wild snake, I believe a hognose, and gave a demonstration on snake handing that evening. He told me afterwards that it bit him a half dozen times during the show but you couldn't tell from his reactions. Of course he released it after the show.

I have my snake catcher (a stick with an angle bolted to it to hole the snake down), a short handled hoe to help get the snake catcher near the head, a pillow case to put it in, and leather gloves for added protection conveniently positioned so I can grab them quickly. I don't enjoy handling snakes at all but it's something I'll do so I can relocate it instead of killing it. You do what you have to do. But I don't see that I have to work something back up out of a snake that it swallowed. We all have our limits!

 

[RollTideChicken]

When we took the Boy Scout troop to a summer camp in northern Alabama, Camp Comer, one of the host kids was into snakes. He caught a wild snake, I believe a hognose, and gave a demonstration on snake handing that evening. He told me afterwards that it bit him a half dozen times during the show but you couldn't tell from his reactions. Of course he released it after the show.

I have my snake catcher (a stick with an angle bolted to it to hole the snake down), a short handled hoe to help get the snake catcher near the head, a pillow case to put it in, and leather gloves for added protection conveniently positioned so I can grab them quickly. I don't enjoy handling snakes at all but it's something I'll do so I can relocate it instead of killing it. You do what you have to do. But I don't see that I have to work something back up out of a snake that it swallowed. We all have our limits!

Oh man he's lucky. Hognoses are mildly venomous but rear fanged. They have to chew on you a bit get the venom worked in but yea you have to learn not to react to bites. When a snake is young they bite often and if you jerk back it can hurt them.

 

[ChicketySplit]

My fella didn't get to go for a drive, mainly for the reason that one of my roosters tangled with him and damaged one of his eyes pretty heavily, so my egg-sucking friend crossed over to the "other side". I did, however, get my ceramic egg back! It was a messy job, and after said egg-retrieval, I left it in the yard to dry. Of course the dog found it and carried it around for a while in a game of "keepaway"! It's now cleaned up & back in the nest box.

I've had ceramic eggs go missing. I always figured the snake would regurgitate it, but, from reading here... maybe not. I usually take them for a drive but there are always more. I had one that killed a small pullet. He did not go for a drive. You would really have to like snakes to massage the egg out of one. Those snakes will bite and it hurts. (another one that did not get the car ride). They stink too. I would write off the egg. Also I believe those snakes are protected here in Ga. (Roll Tide!!!)

I've had snakes eat golf balls before but that's pretty rare, Most of the time they ignore golf balls. They are certainly not consistent. I found an ax to be very helpful in recovering the fake eggs.

I've read that snakes can regurgitate stuff they can't digest, but I've also read that if a snake eats a ceramic egg or golf ball they cannot regurgitate it and will eventually starve to death. I don't know which is true. Snakes can go huge amounts of time without eating so it could take months for them to starve to death. If I find one that has swallowed something like that I'll make sure they don't suffer.

I like having the snakes around, they mostly eat mice and such. I don't bother them unless they are eating eggs or baby chicks. I have a friend that wants me to relocate any non-poisonous snakes I catch in my coop to her property, she'll even come pick them up once I catch them. We've relocated several rat snakes and black racers. I even gave her a garter snake that was living in the coop. It was so small I thought the chickens might eat it.

When we took the Boy Scout troop to a summer camp in northern Alabama, Camp Comer, one of the host kids was into snakes. He caught a wild snake, I believe a hognose, and gave a demonstration on snake handing that evening. He told me afterwards that it bit him a half dozen times during the show but you couldn't tell from his reactions. Of course he released it after the show.

I have my snake catcher (a stick with an angle bolted to it to hole the snake down), a short handled hoe to help get the snake catcher near the head, a pillow case to put it in, and leather gloves for added protection conveniently positioned so I can grab them quickly. I don't enjoy handling snakes at all but it's something I'll do so I can relocate it instead of killing it. You do what you have to do. But I don't see that I have to work something back up out of a snake that it swallowed. We all have our limits!

When we took the Boy Scout troop to a summer camp in northern Alabama, Camp Comer, one of the host kids was into snakes. He caught a wild snake, I believe a hognose, and gave a demonstration on snake handing that evening. He told me afterwards that it bit him a half dozen times during the show but you couldn't tell from his reactions. Of course he released it after the show.

I have my snake catcher (a stick with an angle bolted to it to hole the snake down), a short handled hoe to help get the snake catcher near the head, a pillow case to put it in, and leather gloves for added protection conveniently positioned so I can grab them quickly. I don't enjoy handling snakes at all but it's something I'll do so I can relocate it instead of killing it. You do what you have to do. But I don't see that I have to work something back up out of a snake that it swallowed. We all have our limits!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Oh man he's lucky. Hognoses are mildly venomous but rear fanged. They have to chew on you a bit get the venom worked in but yea you have to learn not to react to bites. When a snake is young they bite often and if you jerk back it can hurt them.

He was a Boy Scout. If you've ever dealt with young men that age they consider themselves bullet-proof, nothing bad can happen to them. Still, he was wearing leather gloves and a long sleeved shirt. He was pretty well protected against the venom. The larger worry is infection from a bite but that can be handled pretty easily as long as you treat early.

All in all he was pretty level-headed, even if he handled snakes.