Lately, I have been
noticing that I have not been getting my full quota of eggs…9 every day to be exact. I have nine layers laying at, what I thought,
100%. Now, I am collecting 8 and
sometimes even seven eggs per day.
Today, I went to let
the hens outside and to collect my daily take of eggs. I usually stroke the backs of a few of the
hens as they gather around my feet. They
were acting normal. As I opened the little
hinged door and all the chickens exited to their outside run, a foul smell came
over me. Now, that was not normal.
I turned to collect
the eggs out of the nesting boxes and was startled by a face to face encounter
with a black rat snake inside two of the boxes. Yes, two of the boxes. His rear end length was looped around the
inside of one of the compartments and his head end was in the adjacent
box. Evidently there is enough of a
space between the narrow board wall separating the two cubicles for the snake
to slither through. I did not think so. But, I am not about to argue with a
very long and very ugly snake.
The snake had its
mouth wide and halfway around an egg. I
was not going to gather that egg, but I quickly collected the eggs out of the
other nests. I did not want that snake
stealing yet another egg. After all, I
had no idea how many eggs one snake can manage to ingest at a single meal. And, here I thought my hens were being lazy. Silly me. Then,
I ran for my camera.
Hey, that's my egg you just swallowed! |
By the time I
returned, the snake had swallowed his egg, whole. As I watched, he glided up and over the top
of the dividing wall, which was still hidden from my direct sight, and the
snake was now comfortably and totally in the end box. How did that egg, encased in the snake, get
through the slit of an opening? Well, I was not about to investigate further at
this point in time.
The snake stared at
me. And, I stared at the snake. The snake won.
I left the chicken
house. I have no idea what happened to
the snake.
And, that fact is a
bit disconcerting for my future and very regular hen house visits.
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