Snake proofing

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Ugh, a large black rat snake got into the coop night before last and killed two keets. I’m not sure how it got in, but I saw weakness in waviness of the apron and possible door gaps. I put in 150 additional landscape staples and now the apron is lying pretty flat.

I don’t know if the door gaps are big enough to be a problem or how to eliminate them. There are two doors but the solid door is boarded up and has almost no gap, except at the hinge side... I had placed 1x4 boards around the outside of the screened door but they interfered with its function and probably weren’t closing gaps much as I had them. I don’t have a picture, but the screened door has a board screwed to the inside to decrease the bottom gap. I’m interested to hear whether anyone has thoughts on modifying the doors to exclude snakes...

 

[Ridgerunner]

That looks like 1/2" hardware cloth. A snake big enough to eat young chicks or keats can get through 1' hardware cloth but 1/2" should work. The rat snake that got through my 1" hardware cloth and ate a chick was maybe 4 to 4-1/2 feet long.

Snakes can climb really well so look high and low for gaps. Gates and doors can be weak spots. So can windows, ventilation areas, or nests you can get to from outside the coop. It depends on how they are built. It can be challenging to close gaps around doors because they still have to operate. Depending on door swing and what is flush you can usually close off the top and bottom doing what Aart showed, either on the frame itself or on the door. Maybe wood or even weather stripping or flashing.

The sides can be a bit more challenging because if you put anything in that gap on the latch side or the hinge side it could keep the door from opening or closing. On the latch side you might be able to put something on the outside of the door itself if you can't fit it on the inside of the frame. On the hinge side it pretty much has to fit in the frame itself. If you can't fit a piece of wood in there you might go to the hardware store and look for some kind of flashing or weatherstripping that you can fit.

 

[aart]

Yes that’s a good idea, thanks! Anyone have pictures of what that would look like?

Assuming inner surface of door is flush with inner frame around it,
and door opens outward,
just add a 1x board inside the frame....
..something like this:

 

[aart]

I’m interested to hear whether anyone has thoughts on modifying the doors to exclude snakes...

Attach boards inside that the door can close against?

 

[blackdog043]

Those didn’t work so well so I think I’ll be trying to add to the inside frame, just not sure yet how to do it exactly.

Look at any door frame in your house, in the middle is what your door closes against(door stop). Do the same thing on the inside of your run door. A piece of trim wood or 1 x 2 would work. Keep the door closed, put a piece of stop wood close to the door, leaving a small gap (1/4") and nail it to the door frame. You want a small gap to allow for the wood to swell and your door still closes.

 

[blackdog043]

At least it didn't get in this time. You could get a couple minnow traps and put an egg inside, to make a snake trap. They can get in, but can't get out until you let them out.

 

[aart]

There are many more other birds, including teen aged chickens, 40 ft away in the main coop - I wonder why they like the juvenile keets so much?

Maybe because they've tried to enter the other coop and can't, this coop is new so they are checking it out...and the new keets are smaller than the other birds??

 

[dpenning]

I want to putting bird netting like you would use on trees to keep birds away over my entire coop it was easy to maneuver and tiedown but the snakes got caught up in it and couldn’t get out. This was for a 10 x 10 grow out pen and a small gaps for too hard to find and close.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you get a minnow trap get one with small openings in the wire mesh. I've seen some with mesh so big a fairly large snake can crawl out.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are those for just catching very large minnows?

Ha, ha. So funny. How big a minnow you use depends on how big a fish you are trying to catch.

Sometime you find things other than fish in minnow traps. Like snakes or frogs.


I thought the minnow traps worked because they can't find the holes to get back out? Maybe they are smarter than fish?

That's how they work. I once caught a rat in a stored minnow trap. I did't find it until it had totally dried up. I imagine rats are smarter than snakes. I'll admit I was surprised it died in there before it found the way out.