They are Corn Snakes. Corn Snakes are non-venomous and are beneficial to humans due to their rodent consumption. Neat picture.
chad

Definitely Corn Snakes. Awesome snakes and big rat and mice eaters. Don't bother with trying to look at head shape on snakes. Contrary to the folk wisdom that head shape will tell you whether or not the snake is venomous, it is not a very useful diagnostic for a variety of reasons. It's much more important to look at pattern and markings and to learn to recognize snakes by their pattern. Your picture has everything that is needed for a definitive identification.

Thanks! That's what I thought, but they are both small and the first Corn Snakes I've seen since we moved here in '96.
If they are mating now, and next to sheets of plywood on bricks I use for potted plants (bad vole problem here) --- could I expect eggs under there somewhere?
I ask because it is just a few feet away from the chicken yard and the chickens will make mincemeat of the snake hatchlings if they happen to wander in there.
If we can get a population of Corn Snakes established, our vole problems will be a thing of the past!
Look out voles, the end is near!
LISA

They usually lay eggs underground or in rotten logs. The hatchlings won't get out in the open too much so I wouldn't worry about the chickens too much. If you ever want to check up on teh snakle population you can probably get a pretty good gauge of how many are around by checking under those boards once in a while. If you see one nearly every time you look under there, you probably have a good population already.

Dave