Snake

[neo71665]

Me too but I don't hunt. I stay in the house and coik. Dead boring, lol.

I hunt and stay out in my shop working on cars or smoking game. My granny taught me how to cook when I was 3, learned to sew when I was 5. All those so called "woman" skills. granny raised 3 girls of her own but was old school and said us boys gonna learn too. My g/f can't use a sewing machine, and she can't rebuild an engine. So yep, never flucking stop learning.

 

[McChooky]

So you just gonna feed the snakes and invite more?

I hate snakes but I will catch kingsnakes and put them in my sheds and barn for rodent control. A snake in the chicken coop is a dead snake. A venomous snake in my yard is a dead one since I have kids. A snake in my ponds is a dead one since I stock them with fish for me. I have horses and cattle, they pretty good about stomping the snake issues down for m

So you just gonna feed the snakes and invite more?

I hate snakes but I will catch kingsnakes and put them in my sheds and barn for rodent control. A snake in the chicken coop is a dead snake. A venomous snake in my yard is a dead one since I have kids. A snake in my ponds is a dead one since I stock them with fish for me. I have horses and cattle, they pretty good about stomping the snake issues down for me.

I have 1/2" hardware cloth on my coop and run as I have zero tolerance for snakes.

 

[cherrynberry]

I have 1/2" hardware cloth on my coop and run as I have zero tolerance for snakes.

Same, some areas has 1/4", but the chickens roam, so their coop door is always open until its time to go to sleep, I only ever seen one snake entering the chicken coop though...snake season seems to have passed...for now.

 

[McChooky]

S

Same, some areas has 1/4", but the chickens roam, so their coop door is always open until its time to go to sleep, I only ever seen one snake entering the chicken coop though...snake season seems to have passed...for now.

I made my kittens a catio outside my bedroom window beside the flower garden and pond.A week later a zombie snake got in and was striking at both( coiled up between them) I used a stick to drag it out the top thru the fence wire.I thought I killed it with the stick but when I laid it on the ground beside the pond the next day it was gone. I never saw any more after I removed the pond.

 

[McChooky]

Same, some areas has 1/4", but the chickens roam, so their coop door is always open until its time to go to sleep, I only ever seen one snake entering the chicken coop though...snake season seems to have passed...for now.

"Zombie snakes" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/zombie-snake-hognose-found-in-eastern-us-can-roll-over-and-play-dead/

 

[BigBlueHen53]

S

I made my kittens a catio outside my bedroom window beside the flower garden and pond.A week later a zombie snake got in and was striking at both( coiled up between them) I used a stick to drag it out the top thru the fence wire.I thought I killed it with the stick but when I laid it on the ground beside the pond the next day it was gone. I never saw any more after I removed the pond.

Some predator may have claimed the body.

 

[The Moonshiner]

The snake in the video is a completely harmless Black rat snake. They will not (and cannot) kill your chickens. They will eat the occasional egg and possibly a day old chick but they are incapable of killing and eating a full grown chicken.

Unless you have Burmese pythons where you live, your chickens are not in any danger. It's likely a secondary predator killing your hens.

I lose juveniles every year to black rat snakes and occasionally adult hens.
They can and will kill chickens far bigger then they can eat.
I've caught them in the act and other times a dead bird with a slimy head and neck tells the tale.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Good morning. So here is my snake tale. I hail from NM. Home of rattlesnakes and bull snakes. They get "big," four to six feet long was all I ever saw, and no bigger around than my wrist if that. No real biggie, and in 30 years of living there I saw perhaps two or three.

So I move to MO at age 58 and get chickens. One day my very calm, very quiet DH screams at me from the chicken coop to come help him. I run out there to see what's up and he is wrestling an enormous black reptile from an episode of Star Trek. He is 6'2" and this thing is nearly as big as he is. I look around for some kind of weapon and finally grab a rake and a shovel.

When I get out there, I see there is not one, but TWO of these monsters! I pin one with the rake and DH dispatches it with the shovel. Then we do battle with the other. When we are victorious, I grab both of them by their tails and hold them up. I have to lift them up above my head and they still don't clear the ground. They are nearly as big around as my thigh (I have gained a little weight since then, but they were still of considerable girth!).

That was the day I began referring to my new home as Planet MO. At that moment, I was not sure I would stay, but then I thought, I have battled these ginormous snakes; I feel like I can tackle anything else Missouri has to throw at me.

Disclaimer: I am NOT exaggerating in this story.

 

[McChooky]

No! I better be careful with my small dog then...thats a bummer.

Our Basset hound will bark at a bug so you can imagine the fuss he made over the big rat snake than ran across our yard years ago! He was barking furiously so I walked over to see what he was barking at .That is when I saw the rat snake.My dog refused to go out in the yard for a while and his neck was swollen big as his head by by the next morning, His vet put him on antibiotic after antibiotic until he found one that worked and finally got the swelling down in his neck.The vet said his lymph glands were infected and even though it wasn't likely it was possible the snake bit him in the neck and nicked the gland. Snakes are notorious for eating rodents and have a lot of filthy germs in their mouths so I'll be the 2nd one to say no they're not harmless.They don't onlt eat eggs and chickens theyll fight or kill a dog.

 

[McChooky]

Oughta be sitting in a climbing stand deer hunting 20 feet up and have a snake drop in your lap

Thats when I'd given up hunting!Btw I never have as I know there are huge snakes in the woods.