So can five week old chicks eat snake bits?

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Sure! Chickens love to eat snakes.
If you kill a snake, be sure to crush the head instead of just decapitating it, reptile brains can last a long time without the lungs attached and it's not very humane to leave the brains intact for long.
 
Fishkeeper said:
Sure! Chickens love to eat snakes.
If you kill a snake, be sure to crush the head instead of just decapitating it, reptile brains can last a long time without the lungs attached and it's not very humane to leave the brains intact for long.
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Thank you! Didn't know that about the brain.
 
I'd also suggest not killing snakes if you can avoid it. If a venomous snake is in an area where you need it not to be, the safest way to deal with it is a long-handled implement, LONGER THAN THE LENGTH OF THE SNAKE. If it's nonvenomous, either leave it alone or put on some oven mitts and grab it. They're part of the natural environment and help keep rats and such down, you want them around. It's more effective to snake-proof your coop than to try to eliminate all the snakes in an area.
That being said, if you end up with a dead snake for whatever reason, put it to use! Let your chickens eat it, bury it in a flower bed, heck, eat it yourself. I've never had snake, but I'm told it's good, kind of like fish. Venomous snakes are perfectly safe to eat, since the toxin is confined to their head and, being venom, has to be injected anyway. You can straight-up drink cobra venom and, as long as you don't have any broken skin in your mouth, it's fine.
If you do feed them a snake, get pics! You could even use a relatively intact corpse of a smaller snake as enrichment- wiggle it around on the end of a stick for your chickens to 'kill'. They're little dinosaurs, after all.
 
Thank you! That’s very helpful. I wasn’t sure how apt they would be at handling a live snake at this age. They got some apple peels today and the biggest strips were untouched. Or maybe they’re just lazy when it comes to breaking big bits into smaller.
 
Phisch said:
Thank you! That’s very helpful. I wasn’t sure how apt they would be at handling a live snake at this age. They got some apple peels today and the biggest strips were untouched. Or maybe they’re just lazy when it comes to breaking big bits into smaller.
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A live snake? Bist du verrück?!
I would never feed a live snake to chickens unless you're talking an oversize worm. Snakes eat chickens. Don't condition them to not see a predator as a threat.
 
Cyprus said:
A live snake? Bist du verrück?!
I would never feed a live snake to chickens unless you're talking an oversize worm. Snakes eat chickens. Don't condition them to not see a predator as a threat.
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My chickens catch & eat snakes quite regularly. It’s quite entertaining to watch, actually. I know snakes will eat chicken eggs, but unless it’s a giant snake, I don’t think there’s much harm to be done. :confused:
 
Relleoms said:
My chickens catch & eat snakes quite regularly. It’s quite entertaining to watch, actually. I know snakes will eat chicken eggs, but unless it’s a giant snake, I don’t think there’s much harm to be done.
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A giant snake or a small chick
 

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