So this is what happened to the eggs

[xbeeman412]

Attachment 114512Attachment 114512
Found it in the nest box and when I tried to remove it it spit up an egg.

[RED333]

My son found a 2 foot snake in ours the other day, well it found him.
As he reached in to get the water it fell from above and scared the **** out of him.
Glad ya found the egg thief!

[starmac]

I picked up a snake that had a bulge where it had just ate something. I threw it in the air and when it hit the ground a frog popped out and left like it's tail was on fire.

[Blammer]

what kind of snake is that?

around here we just get black or king snakes as egg thieves, catch them and drive about 10 miles away and release them in the river.

[xbeeman412]

Got no idea what it is other than an egg sucker!
I relocated in a sack in the back of the pickup and about 3 miles from the house I see the sucker climbing out of the bed and up the rear window! In a bit it dropped off and became road kill.

I don't want to kill non poisonus snakes but it became road kill in short order.

[Beagle333]

I caught a chicken snake that had just gotten into one of my guinea nests and cleaned it out. I cut it open and retrieved 14 eggs. I put em in an incubator and 9 of the things hatched out!
I don't think chicken eggs would have survived that kind of handling without breakage.

[Dale in Louisiana]

Chicken snakes used to be a problem when I was a kid and we lived in the woods. Feed stores sold glass eggs that served two purposes. first, some of the old hens wouldn't lay in a nest with no eggs when they KNEW they'd left an egg there yesterday, so the glass egg was a nest egg. It served a second function in that if a snake swallowed it, when his digestive tract got around to to breaking it, he'd die from a bellyful of broken glass.

Poor (or thrifty) folks that couldn't or wouldn't buy a factory egg often made do with old porcelain doorknobs. Snakes and chickens are neither one very bright. The chicken couldn't tell the difference between a doorknob and yesterday's egg, so she'd use the nest, and that doorknob, after spending a day under a hen, smelled like an egg, and a snake would swallow it. Then he'd die because he couldn't digest a doorknob. I imagine that's an unpleasant way to go.

Today those antique porcelain doorknobs are collector's items.

dale in Louisiana
(Not older'n dirt, but when I got here, it was still on the pallet)

[RED333]

I use golf balls to get my chickens to use the nest boxes,
after a few days the "fake" eggs come out and will be used on the next flock.

[reloader28]

^^^^^^^^^^^
Thats a cool idea!!!!
We just relocated the newest batch of chickens to the coop and was worried they might take awhile to lay in the nests. The older batch was still in the coop and the new ones were laying eggs on the ground in their pen before we got to switch them. It worked out, but I'm going to remember that. Thanks.


As for that snake, we dont kill non rattlers around here, but an egg eater would have lost his head in a heartbeat.

[MaryB]

Fried snake supper! Skin it, gut, fry up like chicken.

[DLCTEX]

I once killed a large (7ft.) blacksnake that had a large lump in its belly. when cut open, a porcelin egg was revealed. It appeared to have been there a long time and the snake appeared in good health.

[bob208]

i was told the way to catch snakes was to brill a hole in a board. put an egg on eache side of the hole. snake takes first egg goes through hole and takes the second.

[marvelshooter]

i was told the way to catch snakes was to brill a hole in a board. put an egg on eache side of the hole. snake takes first egg goes through hole and takes the second.

I read somewhere that was how big snakes were caught in the amazon. A small pig was left in a cage with large enough mesh to let a snake in but not out after it swallowed the pig.

[montana_charlie]

around here we just get black or king snakes as egg thieves, catch them and drive about 10 miles away and release them in the river.

Although we see some bullsnakes from small to very large, we've never lost eggs to snakes. Magpies do that bit of thievery.
So, we leave snakes to follow their own program ... unless it's a rattler.

We don't get them near the house very often, but I am sure more pass by than we know about.
Anyway, one day my wife stepped out the front door and saw a snake. She called out "Snake!" and I (from inside the house) asked, "Bullsnake?".
She came back with, "No .... this one is talking to me."
So, I went out ... and sure 'nuff she had a twenty-incher all coiled up and buzzing.

I made note of where it lay in comparison to the surroundings, then said to my darling wife, "I'm going to the shop for my stick. You keep it here ... and don't let it get away."

She s-l-o-w-l-y turned her head to look at me, and had the most undecipheral look on her face that can be imagined.
It was kinda like a combination of 'say what?', 'you must be crazy', 'are you sick?', and 'I am ashamed to know you' ... all rolled into a single expression of 'whatever'.


Speaking slowly, so that there could be no misunderstanding, she asked, "You want me to do what?"

Me: "Keep it right where it is, till I get back."

Her: "Just how am I supposed to keep it from getting away?"

Me: "Well, if it starts to uncoil, that means it's looking to leave. Just stomp your feet on the ground, and he will coil up again."

Her: "And ... (she didn't quite say 'dipwad') ... why would I want to keep this rattlesnake here?"

Me: "Because, if it gets away, the first place it will go is into your flowerbed (right over there). Then, you will NEVER know where it is, and you won't be able to enter that garden for a month."

So, she agreed to run herd on the rattler, and I got my snake stick from the shop.
I slipped the noose over his head and picked him up, and we both spent a minute examining his coloring. Looked like had just recently shed his skin.

Then, I turned away to leave when Chony asked me, "What do you plan to do with him?"
I said I was headed down the coulee to the cottonwood stand to turn him loose.

She said, "No you aren't. He can do what he wants out in HIS territory and I won't bother him if I see him.
But he came into MINE ... so he dies."

I can't argue with her form of logic, so I put him in a burlap sack and into the chest freezer.
A few weeks later, I gave it to a guy who wanted to make a hatband.

This was several years ago, but I clearly remember every line in that face she turned to me when I said, "Keep it here till I get back."
I kinda hope to never see it again ...

[bob208]

yes women and snakes. we have a old farm house. one night the cats were real interested in something under the decons bench. i moved a toy in front of it and a black head came out then another. well trying to get her to hold the flashlight so i could grab them was something. could not get much light in that corner from across the room. this was between shouts of the house is for sale and let me get the fire ins. policy. they were 4' black snakes.

[bubba.50]

only time I wouldn't get in trouble with my grampaw for killin' a snake is if it was messin' around the chicken house.

[USAFrox]

I'm not interested in deciphering what kind of snakes they are - If I see a snake and it's not faster than I am, it's dead. Only good snake is a dead snake, as far as I'm concerned. Had too many run-ins with rattlesnakes in my life.

[RED333]

Snakes and women
We were walking across the bridge, I walk ahead and hear my wife scream. I turn and she is cutting a rug back up the drive.
A snake had crawled on to the bridge, she ran, leaving the kids to fend for them self.
Now it was just a water snake and crawled off quick, I dont let her forget that one.

[Deliverator]

Snakes and women
We were walking across the bridge, I walk ahead and hear my wife scream. I turn and she is cutting a rug back up the drive.
A snake had crawled on to the bridge, she ran, leaving the kids to fend for them self.
Now it was just a water snake and crawled off quick, I dont let her forget that one.

Well obviously they are YOUR kids, because if they were HER kids they'd have the sense to follow the screaming woman rather than stick around :-p

[RED333]

Well obviously they are YOUR kids, because if they were HER kids they'd have the sense to follow the screaming woman rather than stick around :-p

Well you are right, we do have that very talk sometimes. LOL