Got 'Em!

For the past two days we've been talking about the snake that ate two of momma hen's chicks and the process by which we were going to take care of the egg & chick eating serpent.  Yesterday afternoon we were milking the cows and goat and Benjamin was gathering eggs.  I glanced over in time to see him running out of the hen house faster than Usain Bolt.  "What's going on?" I yelled.  "A snake is in one of the nesting boxes and he's got an egg!" Benjamin exclaimed!

Oh boy!  We walked into the hen house and disturbed the snake's supper.

I mean, that ol boy had a mouth full! His skin was so stretched out it looked like he was about to burst.  He was so busy trying to get the egg down his mouth that he didn't notice us watching him.

That was a fatal mistake.  It allowed me time to go get a shovel in the barn that we keep in there for shoveling out cow poop.  It works nicely for chopping off chicken snakes' heads, too!

The chicken snake fought til the end, striking at us harmlessly with his mouth open. Part of me really hates to kill a harmless snake, but this guy was eating our eggs and baby chicks and would have scared my wife half to death if she would have walked in on him.  Not to mention the fact that sometimes we gather eggs after dark and "feel" for the eggs in each nest in order to gather them. Putting our hands on a big old snake in the dark would have been a scary thing, even if the snake is harmless.

We liberated the snake's head from his body and threw the snake carcass into the barnyard as a warning to all other chicken snakes in the vicinity.  Lo and behold a hen came along and began pecking at the snake and commenced to eating on him. Pretty soon the other hens joined in the fun.

Funny how fast the tables turn in which the hunter becomes the prey!  Well, at least the two remaining baby chicks and our eggs are safe.  Or are they?  Maybe this old boy has a wife?  Or a brother or sister?  Hmmm.  Oh well.  If our ceramic eggs don't get 'em, my shovel will.