The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[KF0002]

They have been eating eggs I suspect. Both nest boxes I found them in are just enclosed cat litter boxes that are setting on the ground. I been wondering why I wasn't getting many eggs from those two pens when other pens have been doing a lot better.
Sucks because those are pens I'm trying to hatch from when there's three other pens that are full of hens that I drastically lag with collecting eggs from. I mean there's literally an endless supply in those pens.
Idk about rats, maybe or maybe not. I don't ever see rats so....
I do see mice occasionally but either way according to a thread here I can do without snakes as rodent control and just use potato flakes.

We had a rat snake that kept coming into the hen house and sucking eggs. Even though it was non-venomous and harmless my husband eventually ended up having to kill it because when he would move it, it kept coming back.

 

[NagemTX]

Before I left for work yesterday evening my eggs had started hatching. Only one Silver Ginger chick had hatched, it was wheaten split duckwing. Considering the electricity intermittently went off and back on for several minutes at a time yesterday and last night because of the storm it hasn’t seemed to bother them much. I am very thankful the electricity didn’t go completely out and destroy my hatch, considering how much damage the local tornadoes inflicted on my area.

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I've had power out for up 6hrs and had a good hatch. Kept the incubator buried in towels to keep the heat and humidity in.

 

[NagemTX]

We had a rat snake that kept coming into the hen house and sucking eggs. Even though it was non-venomous and harmless my husband eventually ended up having to kill it because when he would move it, it kept coming back.

You have to take them pretty far off to keep them away. Like multiple miles away.

 

[KF0002]

I guess it is the season. Glad it missed you all.
We're now supposed to get a pretty bad storm starting Sunday night and lasting overnight. Night time storms suck.

Yes bad storms and tornado warnings at night are so scary. Especially when I’m at work and not home with my family. There have been dozens of people that were found to have been killed by the tornados. And many people lost homes and businesses. The local airport was leveled, and a local air-evac helicopter we rely on a lot was destroyed. Very devastating.

 

[KF0002]

I've had power out for up 6hrs and had a good hatch. Kept the incubator buried in towels to keep the heat and humidity in.

Yes I have had many power outages over the years and usually it doesn’t affect the hatch rate too much unless the outage occurs during lockdown or is excessively long. We lost power one year with several dozen eggs in lockdown for like 12+ hours and literally only 1 egg out of those hatched. That is why I stress so much about power outages when I have eggs in lockdown.

 

[KF0002]

You have to take them pretty far off to keep them away. Like multiple miles away.

He went far away to snake heaven.

 

[NagemTX]

He went far away to snake heaven.

I don't blame anyone for taking out snakes that are impacting their chickening. I personally love snakes and will still take them out if needed.

 

[NagemTX]

We are semi rual area. A few years ago we had copperhead on the back porch. Almost had a cat get bit or if my friends kids had been over. I ended up sending it to snake heaven.

 

[KF0002]

I don't blame anyone for taking out snakes that are impacting their chickening. I personally love snakes and will still take them out if needed.

It was a very gentle snake and we hated to kill it. But it had claimed the chicken house as his own little Bed and Breakfast. It was stressing the hens out and eating a lot of eggs so my husband felt like he had to kill it at the time. I guess we could have taken it up the road and relocated him. The thought of relocating a varmint never comes to mind when protecting your livestock. I appreciate snakes and they do keep the rat population down, so they are necessary and helpful. They usually co-exist peacefully around the house but that one had just become a nuisance so my husband killed it.

 

[KF0002]

We are semi rual area. A few years ago we had copperhead on the back porch. Almost had a cat get bit or if my friends kids had been over. I ended up sending it to snake heaven.

I don’t blame you one bit there. We had a lot of copperheads where we used to live. Thankfully we don’t see many snakes other than rat snakes where we live now.