Ohhhhh, the picture you paint! I was afraid your wasp stings were going to turn into a snake bite when you mentioned your trip to the emergency room.

Your anger over the loss of your beloved chickens, made you much braver than I ever would have been.

I hope you're right that it was a "he" and not a "she" with babies to terrorize you!

Wow, you write very well! I feel like I was there! Glad you were able to take the booger out without getting bit. How frightening. Well done, you are a good chicken mommy!

Go Cheryl!, go Cheryl!, go Cheryl! :D

What kind of snake was it? Do you know?

Omar

Same kind I always get, it's called a chicken snake or a rat snake. It eats mostly rodents, other snakes, frogs and such. But I think it's first love is chickens. This was the fourth one I've killed this summer. I've never had so many before. Couple years ago I had three, but I caught one of them up by the house getting a drink of water out of my sprinkler.

The first one I killed this summer was a biggie, nearly 6' long and as big around as my arm. He was in the coop under a cardboard box. He had three chicks in his belly, one on the way down his throat and he had just smothered another one under his body. Saving her for dessert, I guess.

I went to see my mother in the retirement home yesterday at lunch time and I asked her about snakes when she was a kid. Her mother raised chickens all time Mom was growing up, but she had never mentioned anything to me about predators. But once I got her started on the subject of snakes, oh the tales she had to tell! Mom said that she never killed a snake, but Granny was a regular snake scourge. Maybe I got that gene from my grandmother, skipped a generation over my Mom.

What a story!!! Glad you got him and hope you are done with snakes for awhile. How brave to actually grab him. I am still at the end of joking by my husband after an incident with a chicken snake that had me trapped in a deer stand! I love hunting and know what to do when I shoot. But every time I shoot, before the smoke clears my husband would be at the deer stand to "check on me". I had at the beginning of this particular season I asked him to PLEASE not coming running before the shot quit ringing. Well low and behold he finally listening...........,at the wrong time!! I was sitting in a richetty old stand,since before the sun comes up, nothing was going on, it was getting late morning and nothing in sight so I stepped out the door for a little relief, went back in and sat down for about another 30 minutes and decided to call it a morning. Gathered up all my goodies and was gonna head out the door, and then I spotted HIM laying on a ledge about ear level. Now mind you I have been in that stand for almost 4 hours and went out once and back in and he was laying about 6 inches from the frame of the door! which my head was at one time only about 6 inches from. I didn't know at the tme it was a chicken snake not that it matters because I don't like any snake! After I finally caught my breathe and was able to analyze the situation I figured it was a no-brainer.......just stick my gun out the window and fire up in the air and my hubby would be right there. NOT...... he remembered our conversation about not coming upon hearing the shot! What a time for him to choose to listen! After about 30 minutes and another shot in the air and another 30 minutes and a shot in the air he finally shows up. And of course he stands there and laughs which REALLY makes my blood boil (just like a man to laugh) He tried to get me to walk past the poor little thing, that was 3 1/2 feet long, finally figured he better get it out and make sure it would never be able to get back in again if he ever wanted to return to camp. And no, I couldn't crawl thru the windows, they were much too small, and I had managed to pulled a loose board off to use as a weapom in case he decided to move. Couldn't shoot him as I didn't know about what would happen at such close range and if I would have blown him on me I would probably still be running. The next season I had a new stand and all cracks filled with that foam that expands and windows big enough to crawl thru!!! I still hunt but the flaslight now comes on and I examine my stand first. I now do most of my hunting with a camera . Love the peace and quiet and connecting with nature and I've gotten some wonderful pics that I tend to not share with my family........don't like hearing them say "What did you let him walk off for?!?!?!?" Maybe one day they too will know why.

LOL, those are some funny snake stories. Laughing so hard my eyes are watering.

When I was about six I had an encounter with one of those snakes in the chicken coop on my uncle's farm. It was huge and had a lump in the middle. I screamed pretty loud and my aunt came running. She tried to convince me I was in no danger, but I wasn't buying any of it. Still remember it as the "biggest snake I ever saw."

I was considering getting some chickens, but the story about the snake has made me re-consider.

It is really hard to keep critters out of poultry pens. My hubby rebuilt our fantail pigeon house putting hardware cloth where the small gauge chicken wire was to keep the rats and mice out. They came in for the seed. After a year they found a way to get in. We took all the nest boxes out, even though we had the fine wire mesh behind them, to look for their entry point, but we never could find it. Weird.

I'm curious, have you ever used glass eggs to kill the snakes? My grandpa used to put a couple in the nests if the snakes got bad since most snakes will suck eggs as well as kill small prey. I imagine it's a horrible death but then again all they have to do is hunt elsewhere.

OMG, I was laughing so hard the tears came! You're a gal after my own heart! Thanks!

Glass eggs! My uncles used to put one just outside a hole, and another one just inside a whole so the snake would eat one, go in, then eat the other and be trapped at the hole!

The popular idea that snakes will eat glass eggs because they look like real eggs is based on the human assumption that snakes use their senses like humans. We humans are a visually oriented species, so we anthropomorphize the senses of snakes to match our own. (We also tend to anthropomorphize their motives and intent).

Snakes have lousy eyesight and do not really observe the world our way; they are attracted to the odor, temperature and chemical cues of eggs. As such trying to fool them with a visual look-alike isn't likely to work very well because vision and shape aren't what they use to decide what is and isn't an egg. Also in the possible, but rare event, that a snake were to swallow a fake egg it should be able to simply regurgitate it.

Many products that capitalize on people's concerns with snakes sell well because people are eager for a solution to snakes doing what snakes do, but alas snakes will always eat, move about, and go about their lives and as such they can be difficult to address.

For the benefit of humans (and snakes) I wish there were a good snake deterrent to keep snakes away from where we don't want them. If one is ever discovered someone will be rich.

I sadly had to behead a 4 1/2 ft rat snake on Monday. It always makes me feel bad, they are harmless but once they discover the eggs there is not much choice.Not sure if the glass eggs work or not, all I know is when I tried it in the past the glass egg dissappeared out of the nesting box and we never saw the snake again either