Snake under the chicken??

[bj taylor]

a lady @ church today told me i have to keep an eye out for snakes being 'under' the chickens in the nest boxes. is that for real?

 

[farm-a-zootical]

I'm not really sure what she meant but we put hardware cloth around the whole pen, anywhere there was even a small gap. I have a vivid memory from my childhood of my great grandmother picking up a chicken to gather the eggs & immediately noticed how heavy it was. A snake was wrapped around it, had suffocated it, & eaten all the eggs. I do NOT want to experience that if I can help it!

 

[DinosRBirds]

POOR CHICKEN...

 

[rnoyster]

If you have a snake in the coop eating the eggs in the nests, put a golf ball in each of the nests. The snake will eventually eat one of them and it will kill the snake.

 

[Ole rooster]

Yes that does happen. Sometimes the chickens don't know it or it just doesn't mind. The chicken snakes aren't going to hurt you but if they do bite they can bring blood.

 

[Judy]

Yes that does happen. Sometimes the chickens don't know it or it just doesn't mind. The chicken snakes aren't going to hurt you but if they do bite they can bring blood.

Snakes are pretty common in this part of the country. I've found some in every coop I've had in the south. I feel fortunate that all have been chicken snakes (often called rat snakes,) as we see plenty of venomous snakes around here as well; just haven't found one in a coop. I've never had one kill an adult chicken, only eat eggs, and once a young chick, but I imagine a large one could. Ditto the golf ball approach. When we had bird feeders, they would wrap around them to wait for the birds. The only problem with a chicken snake bite is those mouths are pretty germy, like most animals' are. In my present coop, the holes in the wire have prevented any large snakes from getting in, but several small ones have. The one that ate the chick couldn't get back out; we found it halfway out and stuck where the lump from the chick was.

 

[D'Angelo N Va.]

Snakes will crawl under a hen. One time my room mate was getting the eggs up for me and he reached under the hen and a snake was under her, it had eaten an egg. I guess it just slides under them and they are too dumb to notice or care.

 

[georgia chick]

This is my biggest fear. I dont get my first chicks until April but all I can think about is the darn snakes they are going to attract! Flockwatcher, where in South Georgia? I am outside of Valdosta.