Snakes

[Lovesumchicks]

We had an incident were snakes were coming and robbing eggs. I had a broody sitting on eggs and a snake come in the night bit her and ate all her eggs. It was a snake because we had a camera in the house. Now we have a bigger issue.

No one goes up in their house anymore to sleep. I cannot blame them but don't want to see my babies get hurt.

So as you see in pic my hens are roosting on top of their 12foot high fenced in area around their house. Would hate to see a hawk or owl come by.
Need help as I want them to feel safe in their house.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Could you put hardware cloth on your roof?
about the only way

 

[mcdze]

snakes can be bad, they can take young birds to if you move them to the coop too soon, once theyre scared of whats waiting for them in the coop its hard to overcome it .. food is your friend here .. use it to get them in there and harden up the defenses around the coop .. if you can identify where a snake is coming in maybe plop down a couple of those big industrial size glue traps to give him a real bad day lol ...

 

[Weeg]

Snakes can kill young and adult hens. I have never used these products myself, but they have pretty good reviews on Amazon, maybe it will get rid of your sake problem. I suggest the second link, I think it will work best! Good luck getting rid of them, Avery

 

[Weeg]

As for getting them to sleep in the coop, you can put scratch or meal worms in there at night, to show them it is safe. You can put whatever treatise there that you feed, and long as they know what it is. You can also leave golf balls or fake eggs sitting around the coop, and when the sane comes back he will eat the fake eggs, not be able to digest or pass them and die. It wouldn't be a very nice death, and it would probably eb better just to ge this to leave on his own, but if he doesn't, then he needs to go.

 

[claudiabostic]

Once a snake learns where it can find eggs to eat, it will be back regularly. We had one about a year ago that would come in the pop door in the daytime, eat eggs and leave. One day it decided to stop on the coop steps in the sun to digest its meal and we found it laying there. No more snake. (We seldom kill snakes but they have no reason to stop eating eggs.) One thing that surprised me was that the chickens were not at all afraid of the snake. I saw one hen go up the steps beside the snake and into the coop to lay an egg.
Before you convince your chickens that the coop is safe, make extra sure that it is. (I'm sure you've already done this, but it can't hurt to make super sure.) You may have to make the house look different. Chickens are very visual so if you paint it a different color or do something else inside to make it look different, they may be better able to forget what happened. Then if food won't lure them in, you may have to get them and lock them in the coop for a couple of days so they get over being afraid of it.

 

[Lovesumchicks]

Thank you all for your replies. We found the hole and we actually concreted it. Hopefully this solves the problem. The snake had been coming for months upon pics. It's 8 foot long black snake. I keep wanting to find it and kill it but it comes on odd days and times. Everyone is out tonight in the pouring rain

 

[gpresdo]

Thank you all for your replies. We found the hole and we actually concreted it. Hopefully this solves the problem. The snake had been coming for months upon pics. It's 8 foot long black snake. I keep wanting to find it and kill it but it comes on odd days and times. Everyone is out tonight in the pouring rain

Should not kill black snakes or king snakes...they kill and eat ..........the poison guys.

 

[Weeg]

Should not kill black snakes or king snakes...they kill and eat ..........the poison guys.

But won't they hurt chickens too?

 

[neo71665]

Should not kill black snakes or king snakes...they kill and eat ..........the poison guys.

That only goes if they aint getting into my egg production. Once that happens I don't care what kinda snake they are. I catch king snakes a release in my storage sheds.