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Hedog, I need an opinion
susie
Member Posts: 7,594 ✭✭✭✭
I belong to a chicken group on Facebook. One of the members posted the following. What say you?
Comments
Im not sure if a bull snake is the same thing, but I recently had a chicken killed. We noticed an very large rat snake(i call em oak snakes) im the pen days before. It was actively eating a mouse, so I foolishly left it.
3 days later we had a dead chicken and all the eggs were gone. This pen is totally enclosed, nothing can get in but mice and snakes.
Im 100% sure that snake killed the chicken to get the eggs she was sitting on. When I catch the snake again, I will relocate it. I always moved these snakes in the past, miles away. But I made a poor decision to let this ine eat mice, and even would sacrifice eggs...NOT gonna let my chickens die however.
Rat snakes will eat eggs whole, have fed captives eggs many times when rats & mice were scarce.
Yea, i have no problems losing a few eggs if they eat the mice too. BUT this one killed my chicken in the process. I cant have that!
Susie, I am not sure I understand the question. Is it possible, yes. Is it likely? Probably I would not guess with the evidence at hand. Bull snakes are one form of the western gopher snake. The pine snakes from the east Texas region are the related eastern species. Gopher snakes range over much of the western half of the county. They are, like all snakes, predators and they tend to take endothermic ("warm-blooded") prey, which does include birds. Juveniles are more catholic in prey choice and will take lizards as well. They are as stated constrictors. What gives me pause, is the stated 5 foot length. I have handled animals over 100 inches, and a snake that size can kill, but not swallow a fully grown chicken unless it is very small. It seems to me unlikely a snake eating a chick would respond to an attack by mom, by throwing a couple of coils over her. The usual defense is biting (guess how I know). I learned long ago, if you have live stock, you will have dead stock. I can't say never, but it would not be my first or second suspicion.
And gopher snakes are not related to rat snakes, and behaviors are different, but both are constrictors and will eat birds and eggs. Rat nakes are so good at it that red cockaded woodpeckers, which nest in southern pines, peck holes for up to 30 inches above, below and on each side of their nest holes, which seep resin discouraging rat snakes.
@He Dog appears the BYC post was asking if the snake would kill the full grown chicken by constriction and not eat it. So, kill and eat the baby, kill the mom and leave her dead with no apparent wounds.
I'm more inclined to think the mom chicken may have expired by heart attack fending off the snake if said snake is still there. Could have been a mink, weasel, possum or any other number of critters that took the baby and mom was able to escape but died in the fight by aforementioned heart attack.
The post doesn't mention any sighting of the snake but a question as to whether the scenario described is possible. If so, the poster may be opposed to the snake remaining in the area if spotted.
Snakes do not kill things they don't eat. They may, very rarely, kill something they cannot eat. They have a very accurate perception of what they can, or cannot eat. A snake of some species may wellhave taken the chick, but I doubt it killed the mother. Constrictors bite first, then coil around the prey. There has to be an anchor point, and thus some trauma.
Having raised chickens commercially for 30 years ,heart attacks are real and frequent when chickens are overstressed. As said, never seen snake kill something they can't eat .