Rat snake stole eggs

[greekbioguy]

snakes can be very smart . in the past i used to have mallards roaming free in my yard nesting wherever they liked. rat snakes could not swallow theeggs so they waited near the nest and attack the nest when the chicks were hours old.

 

[j egger]

have you had any rat's since then?

 

[greekbioguy]

yes there are rats that live in the cultivated fields around my house and visit my compost pile at night but they never got in any of the aviaries ,they are smart and try their best to avoid the dogs and cats. my field has a 1,5 m fence all around and i have planted what we call fire-thorn bushes all around so my field has a perimeter of 2 m tall x 1 meter thick green wall with spikes for protection the rats don't touch the ground they just follow the perimeter of the field clomping through the spikes and branches to get to the compost pile, the only time the cats and dogs can get them is when they need to climb down and run the 3-4 meters of grassy ground to get to the compost. all aviaries are away from the perimeter so the rats are too scared to reach them. i do not have rats nests in my yard but i cant exterminate the ones around my property

 

[knjinnm]

Quote:
Soo how are the snakes getting into the coop?

 

[msdoolittle]

Yep, ratsnakes can be a pain in the coop, for sure. I don't kill them either; I catch them and release them (I've handled snakes most of my life :0) )

Anyhoo, I certainly don't mind ratsnakes around, but I DO mind them eating up my eggs and critters, SO really the best thing to do is snake-proof your coop. They can squeeze into unbelievably tiny openings. We are going to build a new coop and I'm covering everything in 1/4" hardware cloth to keep 'em out. I'm going to plug every single dadgum hole! My current coop is made of tin and they squeeze into this little opening where the tin overlaps. Very annoying! I pretty much have discovered that a good coop is really just a ventilated cube! You really need protection on all six 'sides', floor included.

:0)

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Quote:
Snakes in January...what is the temp. there??????

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Snakes in January...what is the temp. there??????

It was posted in September​

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Quote:
It was posted in September

looks like they registered in September, they posted it in Jan. looks like....unless I have been reading this thread wrong all along.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

looks like they registered in September, they posted it in Jan. looks like....unless I have been reading this thread wrong all along.

LOL

You're correct. I looked at the wrong date​

 

[Danny2912]

Found a large Texas Rat snake in my chicken area tonight. I thought I had been missing eggs.