I have an OE banty hen sitting on eggs...she gathered some from her sisters and her mother and added her own...13 in all. Seems like too many to me, but I figure she knows best. She started sitting the 17th-18th so anytime after this morning there could be some action. I've been checking all day. She is in an outside solid roofed pen, brooding in a dog crate...the airline kind with a dark green tarp doubled and put over the crate.
A little while ago I go out to check again and she is all fluffed up, out of the crate and dancing around. I caught a glimpse of a snake tail. I poked a stick in there since there was no rattle on the tail...if that was the case, she'd have been on her own. But it hid in the straw and wouldn't come out. I had no option but to take the tarp off, and drag it out of pen and poke the straw some more. Still no snake. Chicken is quite frantic.
So I have no choice but to upend the crate, eggs and all...which I did into a soft pile of leaves. Ah, Ha! Snake! Probably a blacksnake or the biggest grass snake I've ever seen. It was dark brown/black with yellowish-white stripes down the body. Silverish-gray underbelly. I can't just chase it off because there is a pen with five chicks in it nearby. So I proceed to catch it. Mashed the head down with my stick, and grabbed it behind the head. Frankly, I didn't think I had that in me.
I held it above shoulder height and it drug the ground and since I'm five foot one, I guess it was about five feet long. I walked it down my dirt lane out to the 'main' road some five hundred feet and winged it into the field on the other side of the road. I didn't really want to kill it.
Does anyone have any opinion if that is far enough away or should I load my .38 with snake shot shells and hunt it down?
Anyway I go back to reorganize the nest and the hen is off with her mother and sisters free ranging and I can't really tell which is which, they all look alike. Now there is only 12 eggs, and no shells so I think the snake had eaten one. And one egg has pipped, and is half zipped...and the chick inside is peeping. I moved the crate into the coop and watched chickens until one looked like it was acting funny...and caught her and put her on the nest again. They must be her eggs, she stayed on it.
Lord knows if they will survive being dumped out of the nest, jostled a whole lot, and the hen was off them about a half hour or 45 minutes. Anyone else disrupted a nest so close to hatching like that...what happened? Did the chicks all die?
Terry in Tennessee
A little while ago I go out to check again and she is all fluffed up, out of the crate and dancing around. I caught a glimpse of a snake tail. I poked a stick in there since there was no rattle on the tail...if that was the case, she'd have been on her own. But it hid in the straw and wouldn't come out. I had no option but to take the tarp off, and drag it out of pen and poke the straw some more. Still no snake. Chicken is quite frantic.
So I have no choice but to upend the crate, eggs and all...which I did into a soft pile of leaves. Ah, Ha! Snake! Probably a blacksnake or the biggest grass snake I've ever seen. It was dark brown/black with yellowish-white stripes down the body. Silverish-gray underbelly. I can't just chase it off because there is a pen with five chicks in it nearby. So I proceed to catch it. Mashed the head down with my stick, and grabbed it behind the head. Frankly, I didn't think I had that in me.
I held it above shoulder height and it drug the ground and since I'm five foot one, I guess it was about five feet long. I walked it down my dirt lane out to the 'main' road some five hundred feet and winged it into the field on the other side of the road. I didn't really want to kill it.
Does anyone have any opinion if that is far enough away or should I load my .38 with snake shot shells and hunt it down?
Anyway I go back to reorganize the nest and the hen is off with her mother and sisters free ranging and I can't really tell which is which, they all look alike. Now there is only 12 eggs, and no shells so I think the snake had eaten one. And one egg has pipped, and is half zipped...and the chick inside is peeping. I moved the crate into the coop and watched chickens until one looked like it was acting funny...and caught her and put her on the nest again. They must be her eggs, she stayed on it.
Lord knows if they will survive being dumped out of the nest, jostled a whole lot, and the hen was off them about a half hour or 45 minutes. Anyone else disrupted a nest so close to hatching like that...what happened? Did the chicks all die?
Terry in Tennessee
