trouble with snakes eating eggs

[nutz4critters]

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Well, I wish you'd been with me tonight when I checked on my new biddies. Found not one but two of the darn things in the brooders.

I have two brooders and had a snake in each one. Haven't done a head count, but I know of at least 6 chicks gone. Snakes have been dispatched as well. Bullets do wonders for them, IMHO.

Fortunately, the snakes were not cottonmouths or copperheads. We've already had a 4 and a half foot cottonmouth sent wherever it is snakes go.

My brooders are in a converted "pigeon pen" that has welded wire on two sides covered with the hexagonal "chicken wire" and wood on the other two sides. Built in nest boxes line the majority of the wooden walls and it has a metal roof. I've only seen one rat in there and he/she/it wasn't after the chicks, only the feed.

Scared the snot out of me when I reached in for the waterer in the brooder and the snake struck at me. Didn't bite but sure wanted to. For the record, one snake was about 4 to 4 1/2 feet long and the other was darn near as long as I am tall. I'm 5' 10". Biggest rat snake I've seen in a long time.

My uncle (near Lucedale, MS) also dispatched a snake out of his coop today. He just picked up a dozen Australorp pullet biddies. Went to check on them a couple of hours later and met Mr. Snake leaving with a dead chick in its mouth. Hope Mrs. Snake wasn't planning on her mate coming home to dinner.

I don't mind snakes -- as long as they are somewhere I'm not and as long as they aren't eating my chicks. Those guys that wade swamps looking for snakes have a screw loose, IMHO.

Just thought you snake non-lovers would like to know the population has been decreased by at least three. Hopefully the pair I got didn't have eggs anywhere yet. But I'll be carrying my pistol with me to check on the guys from now on!

Personally, I just wish the critters stayed the heck out of the area. Go eat rats somewhere else. Anywhere else would work for me. For the record, I do not particularly like to kill snakes. I do not go out of my way to find snakes to kill. But when it comes to my furbabies or my chickens/chicks/eggs, the snake has got to go. Besides, he/she will probably be happier up in a happy snake area with people who love them. We do have a healthy population of mice and rats in the general area. Go eat the rats and leave my chicks alone!

 

[ruth]

We just moved to an old plantation home in December and at first my girls were using the coop to lay their eggs but quickly switched to the barn. A couple of days ago I went out to barn to check on my broody hen who is sitting on fertile peacock eggs and saw the biggest snake I've seen in long time. We didn't intentionally kill it but in the dark when it started striking at the pitch fork my husband was using trying to lift it off nest, it got jabbed.

The farmers around here will tell you the only thing you can do to a rat snake is cut it's head off - otherwise it will return. I'm hoping this wasn't the first of a long line of snakes discovering warm eggs.

 

[mom'sfolly]

I've lost a couple of eggs to snakes. I'm sorry about your problems with snakes, I think they are all coming out of hibernation now and are hungry. I expect the problem will resolve itself in few weeks (either they go away or you'll get them all

). Moth balls are supposed to help repel snakes, but I've never tried it. I don't have the serious problens that you do; and would rather have the snakes than rats.

 

[texaschickmama]

Okay, so you have already gotten bitten by one of these rat snakes? HOLY COW!!!!

I have heard if you spread sulphur around perimeter of place snakes won't cross it, don't know if it works or not but an old cowboy swears by it. If I open the coop and there is a snake that big, I will calmly close it back and wait for hubbie to come home. I know, I know I'm a big CHICKEN when it comes to those, I will do about anything here on the "farm" but not that, except if it was a snake that was going to hurt my kids then it would be on.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

A snake leaving the coop with a chick in its mouth? I thought snakes ate their prey on the spot, that they didn't carry it back to their home or mate.

I don't have as much of a problem with snakes here so I can afford to be much more tolerant of them. There are lots of long black racers out during the day but I don't think they eat eggs or chicks. If I had a problem with egg-eating snakes I'd try collecting the eggs more frequently before killing the snake.

There are also red rat snakes that do catch & try to eat chicks. But so far they haven't been successful, and aggravate me by spitting out the chick after swallowing it up to its shoulders and realizing it's too big to fit the rest. That's how I know the chick was killed by a snake, when I find them dead & slimed up to their shoulders, but with no other harm to their bodies.

Rather than trying to make my chick pens snake proof I instead bring the chicks inside at night in a cage until they're too chunky to tempt even the biggest snake.

My 8-year-old son had been asking for a pet snake and one night a week later I found a 3-foot red rat snake crawling in the yard near the chicken pens. I caught the snake to keep it away from the chicks I had and put it in a tank for my son to keep as a pet. He named her "Snakey" and she's amazingly tame. We breed nasty white mice to feed her now.

 

[Buckguy20]

Augie, I sent you a message. Let me know if you got it.

 

[augiedranch]

Quote:
hey buckeye
i havent gotten your message..

is it in my email? or do i need to search for it somewhere eles? sorry, kinda new here


talk to you later

 

[amazondoc]

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Ummmm......if your chickens are completely free range and are even laying outside of the coop, then what do you expect?

If it's not snakes, then next time it'll be possums, or raccoons, or weasels, or skunks, or dogs, or.......the list will be endless. Are you going to keep killing everything that decides to take advantage of the free meals you keep putting out?

 

[LynneP]

I think it's worth researching rat snakes. You need some kind of a barrier, and you should consider the possibility that they are inhabiting some part of your coop, such as underneath. What a perfect place to get fed and watered- heck, stick around to have young.

A rat snake can swallow a goose egg and they're fond of duck/chicken/wild bird eggs. They will also take young birds by strangulation. They are exceptional foragers with a wide choice of hiding and nesting opportunities and they CLIMB. They can be bagged and relocated (ugh).

On a brighter note, they do control rats.

http://webspinners.com/coloherp/cb-news/Vol-30/cbn-0306/TexasRat.php
.

 

[richnchicks]

haven't had a snake prob yet but may. next door neighbor 'unearthed' 37 copperheads in a nest using a bobcat last fall. was wondering if diatomaceous earth would bother them enough to stay away? rich