Had my scare for the day!

Rocktown Gal · #1 05/30/10, 02:25 PM

Went to the chicken house this a.m. to collect eggs (there was six hens in the boxes) and thought it was strange that the one nest they lay in the most lately was empty.

So what do I do...I bend down and stick my face down there to see what the problem was...well lo and behold...I found it...a big black snake. I was actually not as scared as I thought I would be...but went and called the hubby anyway to come and dispose of it...and so he gets the snake out and chops his head off and then goes back in there and he throws another one out of there also...at this point I am wondering how I didn't get bit the way I bent down there to check things out.

Anyway the snakes are gone (for now). I will be more careful as I go along now. This is the first time in 3 years that there have been snakes in our chicken house...unless I just haven't seen them before.

Cyngbaeld · #2 05/30/10, 04:09 PM

Probably just haven't seen them. I've shot 6 rat snakes so far. All of them full of MY eggs or chicks. Rat snakes will strike as they are rather aggressive.

cathyharrell · #3 05/30/10, 04:36 PM

I had a scare too except mine had eleven rattles

Rocktown Gal · #4 05/30/10, 05:02 PM

So maybe this is why I lost two in the last month. A rooster and a hen. They might have been trying to get a snake (or other way around) and got their heads stuck in a crack behind the nesting boxes. Hmmm.

Oh my six...a guy who has his horses here said that he has seen a big one in the barn maybe 6 or 7 feet. The two we found this morning where about 4 - 5 feet...I didn't measure them...lol. He said he tried to get the one in the barn but of course it ran away.

Cyngbaeld · #5 05/30/10, 05:35 PM

I'm sure there's more. (Comforting, ain't I?)

WstTxLady · #6 05/31/10, 10:13 PM

I have actually killed more of those chicken snakes here then anything else. Only 2 rattlers. Last couple years we had plenty of rattlers, now its chicken snakes. I dont like repeat offenders, so they didnt make a return trip.

John Carter · #7 05/31/10, 11:22 PM

two encounters with snakes and my chickies.................
Pulled up one day and all the girls were standing on the stoop looking inside the coopa and really sounding off................I check it out and observe a snake under the drop board and very docile so I putt on my welding gloves and grab her and yank................well about the time I yank is when I see the diamond pattern so its out with the 45 also.....................
Second was one of the girls goes running across the yard with a baby snake in its clutches.......................thinking it might be a useful snake like a ring neck I go to the rescue...........nope....copper head...............I chopped tis head and let the girls have at it.

dezingg · #8 06/01/10, 01:37 AM

Talk about not being bit ...
One cool morning a friend and I were out for a walk. On a hillside covered by oak trees, we hopped over a fallen trunk and sat down. Never saw the cold rattlesnake near my feet until after I sat down. I immediately moved much further away. Cautious investigation revealed that the snake was alive, but cold and sluggish.

Kshobbit · #9 06/01/10, 08:31 AM

I have reached into a nestbox and put my hand on a snake. I discovered that before my brain shrieked "snake!" my hand was already out of the box and next to the rest of my body! It was just a black snake but no snakes allowed in the chicken house so it had to die.

Frenchy · #10 06/01/10, 12:01 PM

regardless of kind of snake if it crosses into the chicken coop or anywhere near nesting poultry it has now entered into the dieing zone ...... I believe snakes have their purpose an will even let piosenous snakes go while in the woods etc away from home but close to house/chicken coop etc sorry

Dazlin · #11 06/01/10, 12:14 PM

Seems I'm getting my share here too. I don't know what's going on lately, but I've seen more snakes around than ever! Killed 3 in the coop just this season. One corn snake killed 2 chicks and ate another. I totally freak when I see a snake, just absolutely HATE them!!
I've invested in 2 barn kitties, and 16 guineas...hope they help.

VA Susan · #12 06/01/10, 01:46 PM

Recently, my husband yelled for me to open the door for him. I opened it, innocently thinking he had his hands full of eggs and couldn't open it himself. Instead, I nearly screamed out when the door opened and there was a 5 and 1/2 foot black snake in his hands! He had gotten it out of a nest box. We don't like to kill good snakes here, so I got a pillow case that he put it into and he tied up. He drove it over four miles down the road and turned it loose. I hope it's not a homing snake.