I had noticed that the egg production was down even after the weather had cooled recently. It worked out that I was home around midday and I needed 3 eggs to complete a dozen for a regular customer. When I opened the henhouse door there it was in the process of swallowing an egg. I ran to the house an retrieved the hogleg. Not wanting to shoot 3 eggs along with the snake it was necessary to use a stick and coax him away. The snake didn't want to leave the eggs and every time it tried again to grab another egg I got a little madder. Finally it moved enough for a clear shot and the #7 1/2 shot did its job. I wonder just how many eggs a day this rascal was eating.

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That's a long joker right there!!

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Looks like eggs make snakes long.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

Well that serpent's egg eating days are done!

A good 12 bore solves all kinds of problems!

Those 7 1/2's done the job. What kind is he?

From my experience raising boa's and python's, I may be wrong, but I doubt he was eating more than one, maybe two eggs a week. Snakes digest their food slowly. From his body shape, it doesn't look like he has eaten an egg recently, unless he broke the shell swallowing it.

My Burmese Python, at 85lbs, ate one rabbit every week. The boa's were good for a rat apeace each week.

Larry

A 44 mag solved this one.

Me hate snakes

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Spin The Wheel

That is what I would think too. But I picked up 16 eggs today and only 9 to 12 before. Stay tuned for updates.

[QUOTE=Fishinfool;139745441]Those 7 1/2's done the job. What kind is he?

From my experience raising boa's and python's, I may be wrong, but I doubt he was eating more than one, maybe two eggs a week. Snakes digest their food slowly. From his body shape, it doesn't look like he has eaten an egg recently, unless he broke the shell swallowing it.

We had a green head and hen mallard that would come up from our pond and visit our back porch and we could almost hand feed them and my wife named them Fred and Ethyl. One day Ethyl made a nest in our front flower bed and there were five eggs in it. We checked the nest every day like expectant parents awaiting the birth of the ducklings and one day I got home from work and looked through my study window and saw this big snake in the nest! It looked exactly like the one in the OP photo and it must have eaten all the eggs while we were at work because we checked on her daily.

The good kind. He daid!

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Dick Burg

That's what she said!

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S&W M&P 15 Sport II

:rofl:

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Sounds like there are a few more snakes lurking around your coops. What species is the one you dispatched?

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That is a harmless Rat Snake that eats rats and mice. Unfortunately--that's not all the Rat snake likes to eat--as the OP alreday knows "Farmers who raise chickens may consider the Ratsnake to be a true pest (since nothing is tastier for a Ratsnake than baby chickens and chicken eggs)."

Herps of Arkansas: Western Ratsnake (Pantherophis obsoletus)

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Possum—The other white meat!

Thanks

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Rat Snake

Before the shooting, 9 to 12 eggs per day. After, consistently 14 or more, 17 yesterday.

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Do it outdoors

The hens are more confident now.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

We didn't mind an ol blacksnake eating an egg or two but we had a really large one that ate 3 to 4 at a time. He'd have to break the eggs to get out of the pen so we finally caught him.. Took him out to the field and turned him loose(other end of the farm). The old Chesapeake we had woulda killed it if she could catch it. Hated rats and snakes...,.and groundhogs and foxes