Snakes & Fake eggs& questions

[cmom]

Guess I need to start keeping up with my sources on this stuff huh.

Same here. My memory isn't what it used to be. I have tried. Sometimes I bookmark articles because if I don't and do another search, I forget where I saw something.

 

[alwaystj9]

I know that if you swing the snake around by the tail the eggs will fly back out of it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have what I think is a strange story. I once found a 5' black rat snake in the coop that had swallowed two golf balls. It could not get back out of the same hole that it used to get in the coop. I found an ax a great tool to retrieve those two gold balls. I washed them off but put two other golf balls in he nests as those first two were still wet. Two week later the exact same thing happened again. A different 5' black rat snake that could not get back out of a different hole, two different golf balls, and the same ax. I had fixed that first hole but there was another one. The same thing two weeks apart and never again! I consider that strange.

I don't kill non-venomous snakes unless they are eating eggs or chicks. I like having non-venomous snakes around.

I did not roll those golf balls in poop or anything else. At least once they had been recently washed and were pretty clean.

I have had a snake eat real eggs out from under a broody hen. I have had a snake eat real eggs and leave a golf ball right beside it behind. I just don't think you always get consistent behavior with living animals. Lots of different things can happen.

I've tried to do online research about a snake being able to regurgitate a fake egg. You get all kinds of stories, who do you believe? I'm firmly in the corner of I'm not betting any of my money one way or the other. I'm pretty sure that in some conditions they can regurgitate certain things. Whether they can regurgitate golf balls or ceramic eggs I just don't know.

Egg shells are made of calcium. Calcium in egg shells can be digested by chickens if they eat them. Some people use egg shells as a calcium supplement. The calcium in egg shells can be dissolved in a chicken's digestive juices so it can be absorbed by the chicken's digestive system. A snake's digestive juices are much more acidic than a chicken's digestive juices. Chickens eat mice and other small creepy crawlies while and digest the bones. A snake may need to regurgitate certain things but not egg shells or bone. Those are an important calcium source for snakes.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Those are a couple of interesting ideas you brought up. I guess the case is still open.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

You seem to be correct …

Source; https://animalsake.com/how-snakes-digest-their-food Animalsake

1.The digestive enzymes of snakes are so powerful that they can dissolve bones and egg shells. However, hair, claws, insect shells, etc., are usually excreted by these animals.

2. Everything, except the claws and hair of the prey, is digested by snakes.

3. Regurgitation and Vomiting
Both terms refer to the action of expelling food swallowed by the snake. Forceful expulsion of partially digested food from the stomach is vomiting, whereas in regurgitation, the undigested food is expelled from the esophagus. The most common causes for food expulsion are stress, very low temperature, too large prey, underlying health problems, etc. A prey with foreign microbes in its body may rot inside the body of the snake, and cause distention, which could be a reason for vomiting.

It is very hard to source a lot of the material that I have found because most of it seems to be opinion rather than facts.

********
As for chickens, everything they eat passes through the gizzard which grinds and pulverizes everything into a past before it is sent to the rest of the digestive system. This would account for the eggshells and small animal bones.

Still trying to get a reliable source for the above information.

Still digging .....

 

[Sherethel]

I put golf balls in my nest boxes mainly to entice the pullets to lay their eggs in the nests boxes. I did find a rat in a nest box and a rat snake wrapped around the outside of a nest box. I have had golf balls come up missing. I believe if a snake eats a golf ball or fake egg it could die but I can only relate a story I have read. Somewhere someone was having an issue with snakes eating their eggs, so they boiled a few and put them in their nest boxes. Apparently a snake ate the boiled eggs and did regurgitate them. If I remember the snake was found in a nest box and it was evident the snake ate the boiled eggs. The boiled eggs were found somewhere. Apparently snakes have places they rest where they digest their food but in this case the boiled eggs were found where the snake apparently regurgitated them. Don't know if it is true or just a story. When researching some say the snakes will die when swallowing a fake egg or golf ball and some say no they will regurgitate it. ???

Yes. I pulled up a floor board in my feed room and there was a live snake and a ceramic egg he had gotten from the hen nest.

 

[kjmtracker]

Here is a pic of a stupid snake. This is the third snake in a week that has swallowed a fake egg. The snake was slow moving and is unable to fit back out through the chicken wire. I found it laying in the fenced area apparently it hadn't bothered to regurgitate the egg or it couldn't. I used a hoe to pick it up and I took it over to the cow pasture and placed it there so the dog wouldn't kill it. It didn't bother to even move after I laid it down. You can see the "egg" in its stomach. The other two I never saw again or maybe this is the same stupid snake. Oh well, my hens have quit laying since the snakes started to appear. I am in the process of building a new coop because I have 20 new pullets that will need to go outside soon. I am making their "run" with hardware cloth so the little ones aren't eaten by these annoying black snakes. Once big enough they will be set free each morning so they can free range on my property.

 

[ART603]

I know this is an old thread but it has answered half of my question so I will continue with the rest of them here rather than start a new thread.

I was told a story of a chicken operation (several hundred hens) near Natchitoche that would put porcelain eggs in all the nesting boxes for snake control. Said snakes would swallow the porcelain egg and not being able to crush it would die somewhere outside the coop/run area. As people moved around the area they would find snake skeletons and would retrieve the porcelain egg that was found with it.

@Allsfairinloveandbugs, and other sources have answered the first part of the question on weather or not a snake would eat a porcelain egg or a golf ball. But I can't find any information on if this habit is deadly to the snake. I would think so, but have never witnessed it.

Mostly just wanted to fact check the story. My coop should be snake proof once completed but I don't want to kill any of the rat snake population unnecessarily either.

Yes, fake eggs are deadly and it is a slow, cruel, painful death. If you want to allow a rat snake as pest control, attach fake eggs where you want your chickens to lay or attach 3 eggs together in a cluster so a snake can't swallow them. Chicken wire is to keep chickens in. If you want to varmint proof your chicken enclosure use 1/4" hardware cloth and check it frequently.