It hasn't even been a month ago since I posted the FAKE EGGS POST. In it I explained that snakes had run off with almost all of our nest eggs. The post shows how we purchased more and marked them with a Sharpie so as not to get them confused. This afternoon it was almost time for church, but I decided that I could go collect eggs first, package them and put them away.
When I opened the henhouse door, this is what greeted me:
You can see by the bulge in the snake's neck that he has swallowed on of our new ceramic eggs! See, this snake is doomed. His digestive system will not break down and digest a solid ceramic egg. He has a death sentence. The thing is, he'll slither out to the woods and die, taking my ceramic egg with him. No sir, that's not gonna happen.
The snake was greedy. In addition to the ceramic egg, he ate a real chicken egg. It burst when I popped the snake with the shovel and egg yolk ran out of the snake. Hens quickly surrounded the deceased snake and began eating the yolk. Cannibals!
On the bright side, I got the ceramic egg back and put it back in the nesting box. All's well that ends well. It didn't end so well for the snake. We let these snakes go when they are in the barn. They do a service by eating rats. When they enter the hen house, however, it's a different thing altogether. They pay the ultimate price for this transgression.
These snakes are pretty much harmless to people. They'll just give you a good scare, because they get so big. This one measured about 5 1/2 feet long.
Tricia was glad it was me that found the snake. She's killed them before, but she'd rather not. I tossed the ceramic egg back in the nesting box and for the time being, we still have our full inventory of fake eggs in the boxes.
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