I don't mean to quibble over the finer points of putting up with snakes around chickens, but two of the grandchildren I adore love to help with the chickens. Katie is 8 and Evan is 9. Once my birds start laying there will be times when my husband and I are away for a night or two. We recently had a family medical emergency out of state and gave the kids (and their moms) a crash course in chicken care and farming. We were gone one full week. They did an awesome job, and they loved every minute of it. (Well, except for the time a few chickens escaped, but that's a tale for another place and time!) Anyway, they are now eager to learn to open the nest box and gather the eggs.
If those kids reached into the nest box and encountered a snake, how long before I could get them to try again? Or their moms? Or for that matter, me? And we live in an area where we have rattlesnakes, including pygmy rattlers which are very small and don't always rattle to warn. Another granddaughter is 2 1/2 and has Spina Bifida, so her ability to escape any danger is minimal, unless she runs one over with her wheelchair. I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but if anyone - including me - reaches into a nest and comes into contact with a snake, I'm not planning to stop, get out a herpetology manual, and try to identify it in order to decide what to do with it. That snake is gone - by any means necessary.
I do what I can to mitigate that possibility - to protect both the chickens and the wildlife. I have 1/4 inch hardware cloth over 1/2 inch hardware cloth (so the holes don't line up, which makes the mesh even closer together) and that's sewn over the chicken wire with steel wire. I have a wide apron of both going around the coop and the run, and the hardware cloth sandwich goes 2 feet up the side of the run. It also goes up several inches over the bottom of the coop. There are no openings into the coop or the run. Food is stored in galvanized metal cans inside a small enclosure and we make sure we are careful not to spill. Some spills are unavoidable, but the sparrows and finches usually clean that up before any rodents know it's even there. It's not perfect, I'm sure, but it's the best I can do to prevent rodent and snake invasions. I am not a snake hater. My son had a pet snake when he was growing up. My oldest granddaughter (20) has one now at her house. So it's not a vendetta against all snakes - it is simply my responsibility to make sure that the birds I take care of are safe and that I'm not putting my little ones at risk.
