Snake Got 2 Of Our Peeps

[Caribou]

Y'all jinxed me. It was just about daybreak this morning when I was getting ready to go to the coop and clean the poop trays. I hear the Guineas alerting on the baby monitor that's in the coop. I never hear the Guineas that early in the morning. I go into the coop, get the snake grabber, and start looking. The Guineas gave me a hint where to look and it was under the Guinea house (we have a hen house and a Guinea house which some of the hens moved into when some of the other hens in the hen house couldn't behave themselves). The Guineas calmed down when I came in the coop; but, they moved to the far side of the coop instead of going out into the pen. The hens were staying up on their roosts. The snake was a small one, only about 4' long and skinny. It's hard to grab a skinny snake and I missed. It's gone. The only place it could have gone was up the back the Guinea house which is inaccessible.

The hens were out in the pen and the Guineas were bedded down closer to the Guinea house when I came back in the coop about 8:30am. I think they were creating a barrier between the snake and the nesting boxes. They moved under the hen house once I came inside the coop.

I couldn't find the darn thing. Kept looking. Finally found it in a small crevice in the top of the Guinea house and just couldn't snag it. It took me about an hour and a half of moving panels and forcing it to go to a place more convenient for me. I finally grabbed it with the snake grabber.

The Guineas are still under the hen house and I suspect they'll be there until it's time to go to roost. Since the snake was right above their roost, I'm curious if they will even go in the Guinea house tonight. They know I got the snake because they saw me drag it out of the coop.

I do like my Guineas. They are amazing watch dog/birds. They let me know when something is amiss and the hens even listen to them!

That's a handy little tool. Do they make it in a 20' model?

 

[Country Living]

That's a handy little tool. Do they make it in a 20' model?

It's called a shotgun.

 

[Meerkat]

" It's not nice to mess with mother nature". .

Snakes keep down squirrel , rabbits, mole, rat,birds, and other rodents and animals that can be very damaging to our fields, crops and even homes [ ever seen what a squirrel can do to your homes roof ,insulation,wiring]. rats will chew up wiring in autos too , homes etc,. Our storage building got most of the insulation torn out by squirrels.
rabbits will eat out a garden in no time flat!

We have seen about a dozen snakes already this year but only killed one so far.:lil guy:

 

[tiffanysgallery]

UK College of Agriculture has a website to educate Kentuckians about snakes...

http://kysnakes.ca.uky.edu/id_snake

My guess would be that each state has such a website, maybe.
Knowing which snakes are beneficial, and which snakes are dangerous to a homestead, would be helpful to some. Unlike me, tho, I'm scared of all snakes, lol.

 

[Meerkat]

UK College of Agriculture has a website to educate Kentuckians about snakes...

http://kysnakes.ca.uky.edu/id_snake

My guess would be that each state has such a website, maybe.
Knowing which snakes are beneficial, and which snakes are dangerous to a homestead, would be helpful to some. Unlike me, tho, I'm scared of all snakes, lol.

I've been around snakes all my life so guess that is why I respect them but also don't take risk around them either. My mother only killed them when they were aggressive. She was a perfect shot with her S&W 38.

 

[Country Living]

I just wish the snakes could do something about the armadillos......

 

[BBQJoe]

" It's not nice to mess with mother nature". .

Snakes keep down squirrel , rabbits, mole, rat,birds, and other rodents and animals that can be very damaging to our fields, crops and even homes [ ever seen what a squirrel can do to your homes roof ,insulation,wiring]. rats will chew up wiring in autos too , homes etc,. Our storage building got most of the insulation torn out by squirrels.
rabbits will eat out a garden in no time flat!

We have seen about a dozen snakes already this year but only killed one so far.:lil guy:

I thought at first when I moved into the desert, that all rattlers had to die. And I killed every one I saw. That was mostly what we saw anyway.
Then I realized as you say, snakes have a job to do; but this was only realized when we were over run with rodents.
So I decided to let them live, and would snare and walk them out away from the house, and turn them loose.

In my later years here, it kinda sank in what the costs may be of a helicopter ride and a hospital stay with lots of really expensive shots.
And I seriously wonder if they'd even send a helicopter for a snake bite.

I now whack every rattler I see.
But I've always left the nonpoisonous alone.

I think we're somewhere between 5 and 10 so far this spring.

 

[Sewingcreations15]

In Australia as most know we have the most amount of poisonous wildlife anywhere in the world. The only time I kill snakes and red back spiders are when they threaten me as in bail me up, crawl on my hand or come into the house and other than that they can stay outside.

We have snakes here that literally chase you down and are aggressive in breeding season (King brown snakes) that can and do jump to your knee height to strike. Usually if you slowly back away from where they are they will leave you alone but on the odd occasion they will chase you which is when I and DH dispatch them. It is unadvisable to work in bushland areas here unless you have high ankle thick leather work boots on and those who service power lines etc wear Kevlar snake chaps that go up to the groin which are a great idea too.

 

[Davarm]

I try to keep the snakes around here in check after going out to the brooder one morning and finding two rat snakes curled under the lamps with five lumps on them.

I made a chicken wire cage that I put glass eggs in then keep it in the coop.

Each time I go to gather the eggs, I check the cage, if a snake goes in and eats an egg he's stuck.

For a couple months I caught about a half dozen but since then I've only caught an occasional one.

 

[Weedygarden]

I thought at first when I moved into the desert, that all rattlers had to die. And I killed every one I saw. That was mostly what we saw anyway.
Then I realized as you say, snakes have a job to do; but this was only realized when we were over run with rodents.
So I decided to let them live, and would snare and walk them out away from the house, and turn them loose.

In my later years here, it kinda sank in what the costs may be of a helicopter ride and a hospital stay with lots of really expensive shots.
And I seriously wonder if they'd even send a helicopter for a snake bite.

I now whack every rattler I see.
But I've always left the nonpoisonous alone.

I think we're somewhere between 5 and 10 so far this spring.

My grandfather was feeding his pigs in the 1930's when he felt something like a stick on his leg. He quickly realized he had been bitten by a rattle snake. This was the 30's, and without help from the extended family, they would not have made it on the ranch. The closest doctor was about 50 miles away, and they likely had a car, but Grandpa was likely the only driver in the family at the time. He went to his neighbor who killed a chicken, cleaned it, and bandaged it to Grandpa's leg. I have never heard of anything like that since. Grandpa was sick in bed for a long time.

After that, and with 7 of their own children, the oldest being around 14, a rattle snake was guaranteed to die. When they left the ranch, there was a Prince Albert tobacco can full of rattles.