Araucana Nest
FreeBird
In my experience - and sadly I do have some experience with this - they will only kill a hen that is harassing them due to eggs or chicks. Broody hens will go after them mercilessly and a rat snake can and may kill them. I've had them meandering through the runs and through the yard right beside my hens and nothing has ever happened those times. Both the hens I've lost were broody: one was on a nest and the other had three-week old chicks. The four photos posted were taken the same timeOMMMMGGGGGG... I didn't think rat snakes could kill a fully grown chicken. Tuesday I went into the run to visit with my ladies during lunch for a few minutes. As I was getting ready to leave the run I notice this super long black thing -- it was the six foot rat snake I've seen a few times around my yard this year (I don't kill them because I'm terrified of mice and frogs (yes, there was a giant toad outside the run door and wouldn't leave until he did). The snake was coming through one of the gaps my husband and I will be fixing this weekend and I was throwing mulch at his face hoping it would stop him from coming in. Well of course that didn't work and here he comes and goes down to the back of the coop. My husband cut a bunch of bushes and stuff a couple of weeks ago and I had propped them up in the run to make it more "jungle like" and he was hanging out down there. Of course, one of my chickens had to run down there while it was there, and was less than 6 inches from it before I called her out and put them all in my backyard. I spent 15 minutes trying to get it out of the coop. I had a 3-4' branch I was using to pick it up (damn it was heavy). Didn't work, so then I'm like this snake isn't venomous and I've watched way too many Steve Irwin episodes... so I try grabbing it's tail while picking it up with the stick -- yeah that didn't work either. So, finally I got it out, of course I'm talking to it the whole time because I'm insane ("snake, I have no qualms with you, go eat the mice and frogs", "there are no eggs here", etc). I wanted it out because I was like I don't think he can kill them but this is a damn 6' snake! Now I'm freaking out!