Snake Battle: Chapter 3

We didn't lose any more eggs yesterday but I think that was only because Dianne worked from home and was able to check the coop every few hours. She collected three eggs - one each from Coco (huge egg!) and Winnie and one from one of our young Silver Phoenix hens. The SPs are kind of hard to tell apart so it's sort of tough to tell who's doing the laying, maybe more than one them?

When I got home from work I decided to clean out the old hen box hay and put in some new stuff. I really need to change out the hay in the entire coop - getting a little stinky in there. I raked out a bit of straw and there he was - Mr. Black Rat snake all coiled up in the back. GRRRR!!!

I had read a post on the back yard chickens forum that one way to deal with these things is to catch them and then drive them somewhere a good ways away and release them. I really didn't want to kill the guy. They can be beneficial - in fact several folks on the BYC forum said they didn't mind losing an occasional egg to snakes because they do such a good job of controlling the rodent population. Apparently rats and mice can be even more harmful to a chicken flock than a snake. Well, I do mind losing eggs because we only have five chickens and at this poing get only three eggs max a day. So I caught the snake in the same box I used last time, taped up the top of the box, put it in the passenger seat of my car and set off to deposit the creature somewhere far away.

NC State University has some farming education units about four miles from my house and I thought this would be a perfect spot. I turned down the gravel road that winds through the farmland and came to a low spot where the road passes by a creek and some wetlands. I thought this would be a perfect spot. The fact that a turkey education unit was about 100 yards away was even better. Maybe having hundreds of turkeys around, and presumably lots of turkey eggs, would make this place attractive enough to this snake that he wouldn't want to make the miracle journey back to our place.

The actual release of the snake went off without a hitch. I unceremoniously pulled the tape off the box set it on the ground tipped it over and gave it an encouraging shake to get the snake out. I think he spent a few minutes getting his bearings and then slinked off into the tall grass of the wetlands. Driving with the snake in the car was actually a little more nervewracking than catching and releasing him. Have you ever driven a car with a 4.5 foot snake in the passenger seat? Let's just say my attention was divided between watching the road and watching the box. Why did I put him in the passenger seat and not the back you might ask. Well, I figured if this snake gets out of the box while I'm driving I want to know about it. The last thing I want is a snake loose and hidden inside my car - that would kind of suck. It turned out to be a good thing I had the snake in the box next to me. A couple times I heard some snake movements in the box indicating he was exploring options for exiting the box. I gave the box a couple of loud smacks to discourage that activity - while stopped at a red light of course.

I'm very hopeful that this snake won't be back, but there are a couple of discouraging aspects to this story. 1 - how in the heck did this thing get in after all the coop fortification measures that I described in my previous post and what am I going to do to prevent it? I honestly don't know. 2 - I'm not totally sure that this was the same snake I found in the coop the first time. He seemed to have some faint markings that I don't remember from our first encounter. Ugh.

Snake Battle: Chapter 2

Here's a shot of the egg-eater getting away through the chicken wire when I first encountered him. When I saw him get away it was obvious that I'd have to put up some wire with smaller holes and possibly patch up some other spots too.

This picture was taken last Thursday and I knew I wouldn't have time to make repairs until the weekend. On Friday I came home and checked the coop first thing. I didn't see the snake anywhere but I checked for eggs and there were none . . . hmmm. The hen box was getting a little poopy so I decided I'd go ahead and clean that out. I put hinges on the front wall of the box to make clean out pretty easy.

Here's a shot of the coop that I think will show what I'm referring to as the front wall - it's where the chickens walk up their little chicken ramp and into the box.

And here's a shot of the clean out door open - you can see how that gives easy access to the inside of the hen box.

Anyways, I'm raking out the old straw and have it almost all out when a snaky head pops out from the back corner. There he is coiled up in the hen box lookin' all fat and happy. You could tell he had really been enjoying himself until I came along. First he has a nice big meal then he's got a ready-made cozy spot to curl up in and take a little snooze. Sounds nice doesn't it?

What to do now? I hemmed and hawed a bit trying to figure out what to do with or to the thing. I decided to get a box from the garage and see if I could scoop him into it with my hay fork. After several attempts I was finally able to use the fork to drag his fat snake butt out of the corner and over the edge of the open hen box door - plop - he landed right in my waiting box trap. I quickly closed the lid and made sure it wasn't going to open. Once I was certain he wasn't going anywhere I carried him far back into our woods. I went across our creek thinking that the prospect of a river crossing might help discourage him from returning - probably won't do a darn thing.

We didn't see him back all weekend, of course I was out checking for eggs about every 15 minutes. I gathered them as soon as they appeared - eggs are really warm when first laid, neat.

I did put up some 1/2" hardware cloth over the chicken wire on the wall he was using to come in. That side of the coop is the only one that wasn't already covered in 1/2" hardware cloth. I also used some expanding foam spray to plug a hole in some of our porch framing that I think he was using, or could use to gain access to the coop.

Let's hope this works. I'll keep you posted.

White Eggs and a Black Rat Snake

One of our Silver Phoenix pullets has started to lay. I assume that means she's graduated to hen status? I'm guessing it's Caroline who's laying. She's the biggest of the SPs so presumably the most mature - at least in a reproductive way. Her eggs are quite a bit smaller than Winnie's and Coco's (as you can see in the picture). I think they'll eventually get a little bit bigger but probably won't ever be quite as big as Coco's. SPs are a smaller breed and I don't think they're particularly noted as super huge egg layers. The other difference in the eggs is that the SPs lay white-shelled eggs.

In other chicken news . . . It looks like we've got our first predator issue. Thankfully it's not attacking the chickens. No, what we have is an egg stealer. I was giving the ladies food and water yesterday and when I checked for eggs there were none. Odd I thought - the day before we had three. As I was making my way out of the coop I saw the culprit - a 4 to 5 foot long black rat snake hanging out on a ledge above the coop door. I tried to catch him with the fork I use for moving hay around, but he easily slithered out of the fork tines and made his way through the chicken wire covering the lattice under our screened porch and went to hang out in our deck framing. Looks like I'll need to cover that section of chicken wire with something that's got smaller holes. What makes that tough is there's not much to nail or staple the wire to on that side of the coop.

I don't like to kill stuff but I'm starting to suspect this snake in several other incidents we've had around the place. If we can't keep him out of the chicken coop we may have to consider the death penalty. I've seen him (or another black rat snake) climbing up a tree to one of our blue bird boxes in the back yard, I've untangled a black snake from the bird netting around our blueberries, and we lost a clutch of blue bird chicks to something - I can only assume it was the black rat snake. According to the web sites I've checked out these snakes eat not only eggs but also small birds, and one of their nicknames is "Chicken Snake" - that's not a good sign.

One thing I wonder is how the snake knows where to go for the eggs. Our nesting boxes are inside the hen box so you can't just see the eggs. Do eggs have a smell that snakes can detect? Actually I bet that's it. I'd be curious to know if anyone has any more info on that.

A Quick Update

It's May and we haven't updated the blog in a while so I thought I'd get something started. The gardens are coming along really nicely - in fact it's hard to believe how quickly things have progressed. The bell peppers are starting to show flower buds, the tomato plants are getting thicker and taller and are putting on bigger, darker green leaves. The zucchini that we planted (as pictured in our last post) have all come up and put on their first true leaves. The basil is up too. The only thing left to put in the main veggie garden are the funky tomato varieties that good buddy Jon gave us. They started out small and spindly, but now they are thick and strong - like bull.

The blueberry bushes are doing great - they have lots of berries started and one has even starte putting up new shoots about a foot outside the base of the plant. I think that's a good thing - no? The strawberries look great - we even have our first tiny fruit starts.

One thing that's not looking so great is the asparagus. Not sure what the problem is there, but we do not have as many shoots as last year and most of them are pretty spindly. We did have one plant put up two nice shoots - the size you'd eat if we were picking them. Hopefully the other plants will continue to get established and start sending up some thicker shoots.

The hops are doing terrific - we've had a normally wet spring and the established hop plant has already climbed to the top of one side of our arbor, which is about 8-9 feet. We transplanted a rhizome on the other side of the arbor that we got from our neighbor, Ms. Susan, and it has taken hold and is putting on new growth.

Still to plant is the melon patch. We have it all prepared and have the seeds ready to go - just need to find the time to stick them in the ground. We also need to mulch over the entire patch. I'm concerned that it could become a real weed haven before the melons have a chance to cover the patch with their vines.

Sorry no pics with this post - we'll probably take some more this weekend and will hopefully get some new ones of the garden up.