Will black snakes harm my chickens and chicks?

[limited25]

Yes, moth balls have the same ingredients as snake repellent according to a snake trapper we had come to our home last year. Moth balls are also a lot cheaper than snake repellent. We were unable to catch the snake but after putting the moth balls out, we never saw it again. Definitely don't put out too many because they really stink!

 

[spurrer]

I doubt that egg shells would harm these snakes. They are as tough as leather. Bird netting will stop them. They get tangled up in it and can't get loose. I have caught two that way trying to climb a pole to eat bluebirds. I am thinking of wrapping the bottom of my run with it. It needs to be bunched up. The only problem is when I start to move my coop and run. It is small so I move it around my yard so my two chickens will have fresh ground. Beside snakes I also have hawks and coyotes.

 

[critterkeeper25]

Around here, the only snakes I will kill are poisonous.   If they aren't venomous, they are left alone.  However, all my hens are adults and whenever I raise chicks, I do it indoors until they are 4-6 weeks old.  In regards to egg eaters, I get plenty of eggs so if they were to take some, it wouldn't be a big deal to me.  If for any reason a non-venomous snake were to become a danger, I would pick it up and relocate it, but I don't have any fear or hatred of snakes and have 3 as pets.

That's just me, though.  Everyone has to do what is best for them and their family, flock, etc.

It's not just you. For some reason, people fear all snakes so they kill them all. I also relocate. In the beginning I just let them be so that they could eat the mice around our coop. But then, they decided to eat our eggs. I caught 6 black racers last summer and relocated them all. I found all of them in our coop, happily eating eggs next to our broody hen in the nest boxes.
We don't raise chicks, so we don't have to worry about the snakes eating chicks.
Just out of curiosity, why do people kill non venomous snakes?

 

[silkie dude]

I just had a black snake kill a good white silkie hen of mine. It's kind of weard considering farther back I have a coop with 45 month old chicks that it just passed by.

 

[LoneOak]

It is very seldom that a black snake would even bother your chickens much less kill one. I have black rat snakes that get in my coop all the time and eat eggs but I leave them be. The black snakes also kill rats, mice, chipmunks and much more dangerous posinious snakes. I would be much more inclined to say that a possum or raccoon killed your bird.

 

[silkie dude]

I know for a fact it was a black snake because I saw It I walked in the coop and saw it biting my dead hen in the face than I ran in the house got my 12 gauge and a hoe pulled it out of the coop and blew it to bits.

 

[LoneOak]

So a black non-posinous snake bite your chicken in the face and killed it. I'm sorry but it just doesn't happen that way.
By killing that snake you just removed one of the best rat traps you could have, the black snake will do you no harm.

 

[Sonya9]

I know for a fact it was a black snake because I saw It I walked in the coop and saw it biting my dead hen in the face than I ran in the house got my 12 gauge and a hoe pulled it out of the coop and blew it to bits.

The animal wasn't biting your hen in the face, he was trying to swallow his now deceased prey. Black/Rat snakes are constrictors, they wrap themselves around the prey and squeeze causing a rapid loss of consciousness and death..

If they can get in you need to figure out how and seal the coop. Killing the local wildlife is NOT the answer, better coop security is.

Rat snakes are primarily after the eggs and coop rats but they will eat chicks, and sometimes they will kill adolescent birds or bantams even if the birds are a bit too big to swallow (obviously their eyes are sometimes bigger than their mouths/stomach). I know because it has happened here in the past, and even last night (bird was saved, I heard the scream).

 

[trudyg]

Some of you may not like it but, on my property, any snake I see is gonna be a dead snake if I can manage it. They get in under my house and I see snake skins in my attic. No way I'm letting one live.

 

[Lil Peeps]

It is very seldom that a black snake would even bother your chickens much less kill one.  I have black rat snakes that get in my coop all the time and eat eggs but I leave them be.  The black snakes also kill rats, mice, chipmunks and much more dangerous posinious snakes.  I would be much more inclined to say that a possum or raccoon killed your bird.

2 years ago I lost my favorite Silkie to a black rat snake. I know for a million percent sure it was the snake because we heard the chickens going crazy in the coop and we came out and we found a big black snake wrapped around her. We freed her but she had already died, it had broken her neck and was just beginning to swallow her. This was a six foot snake. We killed him with a shovel and a hoe an threw him out. No way we're letting him live after that. And this isn't the only account of snakes either. My neighbor has had a snake kill one of her chickens too. Black rat snakes do kill chickens! They are more likely to go after your eggs or chicks but will go after smaller birds, too.