Snake!

[ella&clara]

I just have to tell this to folks that will understand, and get a laugh out of it: This afternoon I went to check on my chickens and gather eggs. I noticed that the nest egg, a white wooden one from my daughter's play kitchen set, was missing. Thinking the chickens had covered it with straw, because there was nowhere else it could be, I lifted the straw back from a nesting box with my hand...and discovered a large black snake coiled in the box. It was about 3 feet long. I noticed a large bulge, just the size of the wooden nest egg, along his length, and deduced that he had eaten the nest egg. I went to get my husband, and we eventually killed him, employing the use of a shovel and eventually a gun. The chickens did not have sense enough to stay out of the way of the gun or the snake, although none were hurt, and the chicken tractor has a few extra ventilation holes from the .410 blast. Just in case you were wondering, gunfire at close range does not alarm chickens very much. Neither do snakes, especially dead ones, which they want to peck. Unfortunately for my daughter, said nest egg is now buried inside the snake body in the woods. Any suggestions for snake repellants?

 

[mulewagon]

You can buy snake repellant at TSC - it's a powder with essential oils that are supposed to disturb the snake's navigation. Unfortunately, they're all sweet essential oils, so you get the effect of Christmas potpourri sprinkled over chicken poop

Also, rain washes it away outside, and the chickens scratch it under the dirt inside.

Your other choices are to completely snake-proof the coop - cover every opening with hardware cloth, don't leave anything a mouse could get through. Or put down minnow traps inside the coop and drape deer netting outside the run, to catch the snakes. There's several threads on here about how to do that.

I can't snake-proof my coop (the frame isn't true), so I have a snake-proof cage for the littlest chicks and their mama to sleep in every night. I'm having to space the hatchings out to three weeks apart, so each group gets old enough to roost before the next group needs the cage. This is after losing 21 chicks and I don't know how many hatching eggs to snakes this year.

 

[Ole rooster]

Why in the world didn't you cut the egg out?

 

[navychick]

The powder snake repellent has not worked for me. Snakes are attracted to the space under our pool heater and I have seen snakes many times slither back and forth across the powder. The minnow traps have been great. We have caught many. It is tricky getting the out though.

 

[ella&clara]

I thought about cutting it out, but just couldn't stomach it! My daughter didn't seem to want the egg back. It would have been interesting to see what it looked like. My mom says she's heard of people cutting out eggs and baby chicks but didn't know if it was actually true or not.

Snake-killing has always been done by someone else, and although I didn't kill this one, I was there for it. I'm a little shaken by the whole thing. I need to get over it, I know. I am a country girl enough to know I would have killed it if my husband hadn't been home.

 

[mulewagon]

ella&clara :

My mom says she's heard of people cutting out eggs and baby chicks but didn't know if it was actually true or not.

When we caught the huge snake that was taking so many of my chicks, my husband killed it with a shovel and cut it open. He found three crushed eggs with the almost-hatched chicks inside

I've seen a snake regurgitate an egg, too - I cornered it with its ill-gotten gains, and it couldn't get away. It spat the egg back up and zoomed off. I didn't want the egg, either!​

 

[Ole rooster]

My grandmaw used to have thos old white door knobs in her nest. She always got he door knobs back.

 

[Ole rooster]

My grandmother used to have those old white door knobs in her nest. She always got he door knobs back.

I don't which came first, the chicken or the egg. But you can bet there was a snake close by.

 

[ella&clara]

I bet my grandma would have gotten hers back too!