Snake sleeping in nesting box

[MSDeb]

Quote:
It's sending out tweets that you are a meanie!

 

[brownegger]

Yeah, I agree with a couple of the other posters here. This is a black rat snake that you have pictured and a nice looking one at that! Glad you decided to just relocate him, hopefully he will not return!

 

[Jack Sparrow]

To Memphisjourney2seramas, Bull snakes are harmless and although very long usually and they scare you if you don't like snakes, they do kill rattlers and keep them away. I've had one (bull snake) under my chicken house for years and every once in a while we meet - and go our separate ways - they look like a rattler so you have to make sure they aren't rattling before you ask it nicely to leave. They will eat eggs though but since my nest boxes are 3' off the ground, I've never had an egg go missing (that I know of).

 

[un-named]

Quote:
He's beautiful! <speaks from a distance>

 

[Attila the Hen]

Well I confess to being someone who refuses to kill anything I don't have to and rarely do I have to. Everything simply wants to live. (I sometimes feed the scorpions to the chickens and feel a bit bad about it
Humans routinely kill things that scare them and I hate that. If you are afraid--walk away. I realize there are exceptions with poisonous creatures and children running about, but my experience is generally that everything is more afraid of me (with good reason) than I am of them and they will leave if they can.

 

[flowerchild59]

I would just crap my jeans if I found a snake curled up in the egg box.

 

[Attila the Hen]

There was definately an expletive.

 

[Brody's Broodello]

Well everyone always told me don't kill the black snakes, they are good. Well last year one of those"good" black snakes was wrapped around my hubby's whandotte cockeral with half it's body swallowed up. He cost alot! Had to drive to Ohio to pick him up, where we were meeting a breeder who was delivering him from OK. Well I killed that SOP snake on the spot. As well as a few of his buddies who tried the same thing last year. Forward to last week. I find a silkie pullet dead in the barn for no reason, healthy the night before, dead the next day. Eggs slowly not being laid by hens, but it's been hot. Then my son's fav Ameraucana pullet, found dead in her cage? The next morning another silkie. They all were healthy, appeared to have broken necks. Sat morning my son comes running in the house saying there is a big snake in the barn isle. I go out & find it down under a stall. once it say me it disappeared under the barn again. I went off to run errands, when I got home I went into the barn with a flat shovel. I found the snake, just crawling off of the VERY GOOD silkie hen that I had in the stall, and yep she was dead, just like the other birds in the last two weeks. I now know what the mysterious "illness" that was doing my good show silkies in, as well as my kid's Fav bird! That 5 1/2 foot "good snake" is no more! It was leaking out egg yoke all over the place. It just killed the birds, did not try to eat them like the snake in the past, just killed them & moved on it's way. That snake in the last 2 weeks cost me a few hundred bucks in birds & eggs.

So warning to any snake thinking about entering my coops, I have a machete and am not afraid to use it!

 

[acw123]

Had to get rid of two black snakes this morning. I had already caught one of them before and relocated it but darn if it didn't come back. I knew it was only a matter of time before it went after eggs or chicks so when it, and its 6 ft plus mate came into the run today it was there last outing. I don't feel guilty.

 

[Jack Sparrow]

This is what I found in my chicken yard last night...stuck in the fence. All my chickens are adult and weren't bothered by it. It was gone this morning and I didn't see it tonight. I'm keeping a watchful eye though.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=514589