Yet another snake post....

[TammyTX]

That red snake is beautiful but remember, a snake is a SNAKE and it doesn't care if it eats a rat, a egg or a chicken.

We had rat snakes with our old flock and we thought they were cool too, (at the time we had too many eggs anyway) we would just shoo them out. Then one day we found our Porcelain roo dead, his head was missing but no blood (means it was dead before head removal). According to Mother Earth News an old toothless raccoon kills like that EXCEPT there was no way for something that large to get into the coop. Now after seeing that juvenile rat snake wrapped around our 5 week old Cochins neck I think we solved the mystery. The rat snake must have tried choking the roo and then couldn't get anything down but the head.

 

[KattyKillFish]

i don't know alot about snakes but would building the coop on stilts work?

 

[luvmychicknkids]

Quote:
Snakes don't just eat part of their food...they CAN'T. They swalow everything whole which means it couldn't have removed the head no matter what it could or couldn't swallow. If it tried and couldn't get the bird down it would have puked it back up. Unless your roo just had a very poorly attached head I think it had to be something else.

 

[luvmychicknkids]

Quote:
Snakes climb VERY well.

 

[98 gt]

Quote:
unless its head "popped off" which can happen... like a circus geek...
about the only way to stop a snake is to use some VERY small hardware cloth or the like...

 

[wasatusay]

I have caught a few rat snakes, one got one of my bantam chicks, some caught in the act of stealing eggs. But I would never kill them. I just catch them and take them a few miles down the road to a friends house that has goats and let them go. They are great to keep mice out of his feed shack.
Too many people are quick to kill a snake. They have their place in the ecosystem. If they are getting to your chicks and eggs then you are not doing good preventive measures and need to get busy.
Capture and release is something I believe in, unless it is not an option like it is for some predators that can only be dealt with by more permanent measures.

 

[sandypaws]

hhmmm..
a human is a human and doesnt care what it eats.. an egg or a chicken or a cow or a pig or a pony................

 

[TammyTX]

...I prefer not to eat ponies...but I have had rattlesnake...taste like fishy chicken.

(Chickens heads can pop off if they are wrung too strongly and my Porcelain was only the size of a pigeon so I don't think it would take much wringing.)

 

[KattyKillFish]

I would eat a pony...
and i would LOVE to try rattlesnake. i've had alligator, it's surprisingly delicious!

 

[StrawberryHouseMouse]

If you want, put it in a plastic container and ship it to me

it will eat your chicken eggs and chicks. I dont like letting large snakes around my birds. They are bad news. They eat rats sure, but they also eat eggs and chicks.