Heard the roo giving out with the raspy ground pred. alarm, but didn''t see anything and the chooks went on foraging. About twenty minutes later the chooks had all parked up on the back deck (hang out before roosting). Then the turkey hen (3yr. old Slate) started with her excited `I found something tasty' `pweeet'. We looked over to see her with wings half-spread, running forward, jumping into the air and coming down on something. She kept up with this hitting and running until we got to her (had decided to take on a little more than she could eat!). Now the Black Rat snake got tired of the harassment and went straight up, scaling a White Oak on the west side of the house.
This should be an object lesson to those with little pullets. hardware cloth is very good. Not much else will stop these guys (talking passive means of protection for unattended chooks). Even though we have trees in/out of the run, and plenty of the `ratters', the only snake we've had to remove from the coop was a Prarie King that was being `tenderized' by the flock (looking for rodents in the wrong place).
The link below is a good reference for those with problems (snake-proof fence seems to be the best bet - other than hardware cloth and attention to loose fitting doors/other `holes').
http://www.rutherfordcounty.org/pets/pdfs/Controlling Snake Problems Around Homes.pdf
We have all kinds of snakes here, but no losses of eggs/chooks in three yrs. (Full Size Standard Chooks).
(the one in the picture is probably on the way down the chimney right now...)
This should be an object lesson to those with little pullets. hardware cloth is very good. Not much else will stop these guys (talking passive means of protection for unattended chooks). Even though we have trees in/out of the run, and plenty of the `ratters', the only snake we've had to remove from the coop was a Prarie King that was being `tenderized' by the flock (looking for rodents in the wrong place).
The link below is a good reference for those with problems (snake-proof fence seems to be the best bet - other than hardware cloth and attention to loose fitting doors/other `holes').
http://www.rutherfordcounty.org/pets/pdfs/Controlling Snake Problems Around Homes.pdf
We have all kinds of snakes here, but no losses of eggs/chooks in three yrs. (Full Size Standard Chooks).
(the one in the picture is probably on the way down the chimney right now...)
That is a HUGE snake and just looking at it makes my skin crawl!
