Nesting Box Surprise!

My 6 year old daughter has taken on the job of daily egg collecting. She got the surprise of her life last week, when she opened the nesting box and saw this inside.



She came running into the house, completely out of breath. "MOm!!!!! There's a snake in the nesting box!!!! It gave me a heart attack!!!! i think it's a Black Mamba!!!!" Ha ha. So i went out, and sure enough there was a HUGE black snake in the chicken coop. It was however a Black Rat snake, not a Black Mamba. :)


So i went out, grabbed a big stick and tried to get it out of the coop. All the chickens were yelling. This unwelcome visitor really upset my ladies, quite understandabley. As soon as i got the stick near the snake it began to coil up, this allowed me to hook the stick under the largest of the loops and pull it over the edge of the box. The snakes own weight then caused it to fall out of the box.



Once it hit the ground, it tried to strike at me. Black snakes are not venomous or typically very aggressive, but they will bite if provoked. This one was quite upset with me for flipping her out of the nesting box. She was also over 4' long, and full of chicken eggs. lol. i continued to poke at her with the stick, trying to get her to go on her way. However, she completely ignored me and slithered right back under the chicken coop. Ack!!

This happened last week, and we haven't seen her since...but i suspect we'll be seeing her again before too long. Snakes are not an uncommon occurrence around here, although lifting the nesting box lid to see a snake that large is still quite a surprise! That was our excitement for the week. :)