Will One Snake Keep The Others Away?

[3KillerBs]

While there are some "snake eating snakes" which can be beneficial, and a snake generally won't attempt to eat something it can't swallow (thus, many smaller species "snake eating snakes" can eat another snake of roughly their own length, mice, and rats, but won't take on even a 4-6 week old standard chicken), the best use for a python found on your property is as food for your chickens.

FWIW, I have a small rat snake - maybe 16", which I permit to sometimes take residence in my barn to help with mouse control - but he's being replaced by a cat. I've never lost even a 3 week old chick to him, but the chicks are behind 1/2" hardware cloth for their sdafety, and the snake can't fit his way thru. The rat snake, I hope, will move under my shed.

Around here old-timers say that black rat snakes keep the copperheads away.

We've seen a 3-footer and a 10" baby and I'm good with that. I'd rather lose an occasional chick or egg than have to cope with rats, mice, and copperheads.

I'm sure the chickens would be delighted to eat a python if I shot it for them.

 

[PigTheChicken]

Thanks everyone!
I’m in Australia so we get quite a few snakes. We also live around a lot of nature reserves around where I am so that would be where we would let it go. But I think it will be best just to keep it on my property. It seems to just be eating all the rodents. The duck that we also think was killed by this snake hadn’t been eaten. So it doesn’t seem like it wants to eat any of them. I’ll just have a look for some ways to keep it away from our coop. If there is anything or any animals to protect our coop that anyone could recommend that would be great.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Hardware cloth with no gaps. Good luck and g'day! Welcome to BYC!

 

[cmom]

I don't think a snake will keep others away unless it's a snake that will eat other snakes. Quite awhile back a neighbor that had chickens was loosing her birds and didn't know what was getting them. She eventually discovered a very large snake under her porch. She got someone to remove it bit not sure who. It ate all of her birds over a period of time.