The mystery of the Missing Ceramic Eggs

[DuckWhisperer06]

The problem with the trail camera is that the chickens in the house would trigger it constantly with their movements, and I would have to plow through thousands of pictures or hours of videos to catch the snake in the act. On the other hand, if it is snakes that are stealing fake eggs... Let them! I am sure, as you wrote, that they will die of indigestion. Those eggs will not be digested and will not pass through the snake. I have a few more of those eggs. I am going to place them in the nests to soak in the smell of chickens and eggs...

One thing you could try (please don’t quote me on this, I heard it from my neighbor), is to take a smallish egg, and work a large fish hook (catfish hook?) into it with the hook tied to line or string. Tie the string to something stable (a cinderblock might work since it has a hole in the middle). It shouldn’t harm the chickens at all as long as the point of the hook is inside of the egg since the chickens won’t swallow the egg whole.

The shake (if that’s what it is) will swallow the egg, which has a hook tied to a string in it, so the string will hang out of its mouth. Once he gets it down, he probably won’t want to give up the egg. Then as he starts to digest it, the hook will become exposed and will become caught in his stomach. Then he can’t leave.
Check multiple times a day to see if you ‘caught’ anything so you can kill it quickly. (I wouldn’t want a snake to suffer for too long)

 

[Punkybrewster]

Snake fishing. Haha. Never heard of that but sounds like it would work.

 

[DuckWhisperer06]

Snake fishing. Haha. Never heard of that but sounds like it would work.

I haven’t tried it yet but it seems like it would work.

Just make sure you have a quick way of killing it on hand whenever you go to check the coop (or wherever you decide to set the trap).
Let me tell you though, a shovel will not work. It will take forever to kill it because you’re just cutting off circulation and making it suffer. To me, the easiest way is to shoot it.

 

[ColtHandorf]

Definitely a snake. I had one eat a ceramic egg just last week. I also forcibly reclaimed it from the burn pile after the snake had an appointment with some feed sacks and lighter fluid.

I do believe they can regurgitate ceramic eggs. The third one I caught and released before I began to wage a full scale war on them regurgitated three goose eggs in the trash can on his trip down the road.

 

[ChemicalchiCkns]

...regurgitated three goose eggs in the trash can on his trip down the road.

Nasty!

 

[ColtHandorf]

Agreed!

 

[cmom]

I have no idea about the camera in a previous post. I would like to see some day and nighttime pictures from it. If you have a game camera, put it up. I suspect you may see what has been in or around your coop and may be surprised. I bought this one. It takes good nighttime pictures which I like because here most of the predators come out at night. The drawback is that it takes the tiny micro SD card.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073PSM9QD/?tag=backy-20

Since I put up my cameras I was surprised how many predators roam on my property especially at night. This was from a few nights ago. A coyote behind some of the coops.

 

[aart]

Have had this happen....usually find it buried in the nest or coop floor bedding, eventually.

 

[cluckcluckhens]

I hate to you this but, ours we are missing four. One from last year and three from this year. I have two left one in the laying box and one in the house. In our case it was squirrels. They can move things around a little at a time. Last year I found one under our coop and under the coop the squirrels made a home under there. They will also make a home under wood piles which our neighbor has two locations. One is on the back side of our run and it is on his property so we cannot say anything. Squirrel will eat the eggs. I caught one in the laying box and it ran out past my feet while standing in front of the laying box.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I hate to you this but, ours we are missing four. One from last year and three from this year. I have two left one in the laying box and one in the house. In our case it was squirrels. They can move things around a little at a time. Last year I found one under our coop and under the coop the squirrels made a home under there. They will also make a home under wood piles which our neighbor has two locations. One is on the back side of our run and it is on his property so we cannot say anything. Squirrel will eat the eggs. I caught one in the laying box and it ran out past my feet while standing in front of the laying box.

Wait. A squirrel will eat a ceramic egg?