I had my ducks free ranging for over a year with no problems. Then some of their young ducklings started going missing. I thought a large fish was eating them. After all 5 ducklings vanished the half sized ones started to go. I could not believe a fish was big enough to eat them! I thought maybe the aggressive drakes had chased them away into the rice fields.
Then after they had gone I started loosing the adult birds at about 1 a week. (4 went missing) I thought someone was stealing them! Normally the ducks are smart and will make a lot of noise and go onto the lake if a predator like a dog is about. I never heard any noise. I never found any feathers or evidence of a struggle. I was at a loss.
Then I came home late (4am) and went to check on the ducks with my torch before I went to bed. I saw them all snoozing on the island in the middle of the lake. I turned my torch away and was about to go into the house, when I realised something was not quite right. I thought I saw something different about the island. I shone the torch back.
I was shocked to see (only inches from one sleeping duck) a long thick 'tree branch' laying nearly the entire length of the island ... about 7 foot. I took a closer look and froze as I realised it was a huge PYTHON!!!!!!
It must have grown that big eating my birds! My ducks did not recognise it as danger as it moved so slowly and made no noise. They were literally 'sitting ducks'. I made some noise to wake the ducks up, but they just looked at me and quacked, annoyed I had disturbed their sleep. I had to throw a palm frond out to the island, which did not bother my ducks (who thought I had gone mad), but the snake vanished in a split second into the water - with out hardly a ripple.
It was no way like on the TV. I was shocked by the speed of the thing. After that day I sadly had to re home my remaining ducks to a friend. I kept 2 in my chicken run, but they were not happy without the lake to swim on, so I gave them away too. So sad. About a week after seeing the snake my neighbour found a huge snake skin in his garden, but no one has seen the sneaky reptile since. Now his fast food shop is empty I think he was gone away looking for new prey.
At least my chickens are still safe as I lock them in METAL dog crates in their run at night. I live in rural Thailand, so its not too unusual to get snakes about. If the farmers see a big python they will kill it and eat it. They say its delicious. I quite like snakes (despite what this one did), and I hope he is still alive some where else.
there is nothing like seeing the babies you hand raised die, to make you want to protect them better! So urge people to, at the very least, cover the bottom to feet of fence in hardware cloth!
