The last couple days when I feed the chickens and collect eggs, there are no eggs to collect. Not a one. Normally, there is at least one hen sitting on some. Something frightened the hen off the nest.
I suspect a snake.
If I see the snake, I will have no trouble killing it. 25 years ago, when I lived in Arizona, I opened up a nesting box and a big rattler was in the nesting box. Nice place to live, free food, warm, etc. Getting seen was his last mistake. But this time, my thief isn't so careless.
I'm not fond of poison as I don't want to kill anything else. Glue traps are a joke.
There are no broken eggs, so whoever is getting them, is eating them whole. Like a snake.
Any help will be appreciated.
Snake trap?
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Juliet
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LostCreekAcres
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Re: Snake trap?
Get yourself some guineas! I love guineas. At the farm we had about a baker's dozen of chickens and may 5-6 guineas. Plusses and minuses to guineas. They'd get on the house and run back and forth - sounded like a herd of elephants. They are watchdogs (annoyingly so). Every little thing out of the ordinary will set them off. Can't remember which is which, but one gender would make a single syllable sound and the other would say, "Butt crack". Really does sound like butt crack.
We got them because we had SO many ticks. Supposed to eat lots of ticks. Also, I'd open the garden gate when we had squash bugs and in hours all the squash bugs would be gone. I've seen pictures of them surrounding a snake. Read they will eat worms and small garter snakes, peck at bigger snakes and make such a ruckus that the snake will be annoyed and leave.
We housed ours with the chickens. Had an automatic door for the coop and the guineas would run in same as the chickens all winter. However, in the summer, I'd often see them roosting in the trees at night or behind a basketball hoop. We free-ranged the birds. Guineas never layed in the coop. We'd eventually find their nests in the field full of 30-40 eggs. Male/female would take turns sitting on the nest. Coyotes would usually find them. If their eggs miraculously managed to hatch, they'd usually die because they'd get wet and die from the cold exposure while babies.
All-in-all, I loved the guineas.
I'm not smart enough to embed a picture:
https://www.goerie.com/story/lifestyle/ ... 944700007/
We got them because we had SO many ticks. Supposed to eat lots of ticks. Also, I'd open the garden gate when we had squash bugs and in hours all the squash bugs would be gone. I've seen pictures of them surrounding a snake. Read they will eat worms and small garter snakes, peck at bigger snakes and make such a ruckus that the snake will be annoyed and leave.
We housed ours with the chickens. Had an automatic door for the coop and the guineas would run in same as the chickens all winter. However, in the summer, I'd often see them roosting in the trees at night or behind a basketball hoop. We free-ranged the birds. Guineas never layed in the coop. We'd eventually find their nests in the field full of 30-40 eggs. Male/female would take turns sitting on the nest. Coyotes would usually find them. If their eggs miraculously managed to hatch, they'd usually die because they'd get wet and die from the cold exposure while babies.
All-in-all, I loved the guineas.
I'm not smart enough to embed a picture:
https://www.goerie.com/story/lifestyle/ ... 944700007/
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Momma J
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