Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Picking Eggs

Inspired by Richard's "Pickin' Rocks" thread - we always "picked" eggs. Was that a very localized term, or was it more widely used?

We gathered eggs.

Or, we gather eggs.

Gather here too.

"Git".....as in "son go git the eggs"...

At the store I pick the eggs with the longest expiration date.

LOL. Me too.

You guys and my wife - I always figure that they will be used up soon enough to not worry about trying to locate the "use by" date.

I feared the dreaded settin' hens. I tried most everything, tin can on head, the hen's not mine, more pioneer tricks I'm sure that elude me at this time.

Never heard it called anything but gathering eggs. If you want a good scare, stick your hand in a nesting box, and grab a big old snake instead of an egg........it'll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.

Or reach in for an egg and get ahold of a possum. Did that once.

Shot a 5 1/2' rat snake in the laying boxes yesterday.

Now I know where the missing eggs were going.

They will flat get them. The old folks here never called them rat snakes, mostly chicken snakes, or cowsuckers, because they would supposedly suck the milk from a cows teat........something I have never believed.

Whatever the case, they will eat the heck out of eggs.

Just lucky it we me gathering the eggs.

Had it been my wife opening up the laying box and seeing that snake there, she would have torn the chicken coop up, and needed new blue jeans too.

My grandmother, who I dearly loved, was terrified of snakes. I can remember several times she would yell for me to come and shoot a snake. Which leads me to this story, and how you would have had to been there to appreciate it.

My brother's horse had died, and we'd took it to the local diagnostic lad to see what had happened, since it'd been a young horse. The vet that was working there that day was of India or Pakistan descent, judging by his accent. He looked the horse over, and said that since it died so quickly, he thought maybe it was a snakebite, since he thought a leg was swollen. I knew that was B.S., mostly because we'd never seen a poisonous snake anywhere close....turned out I was right, it was something that had got it's stomach infected, according to the lab report.

So, when I get back to my Granny's, she asked me about the horse, and I told her what the vet said.......snakebite. Immediately, she began to let me know that she'd been saying for years that she believed there were copperheads around. I didn't say anymore, and the next day she called me and said that she thought the last two chicken snakes I'd killed at her house, had really been copperheads. I told her that I didn't think so.

A few days later, I found out that she and my brother were practically afraid to go out of the house, believing there were some kind of poison snake around there. I figured it was about time to let them know that the lab report had come back, and it wasn't a snake. My brother got over the joke, but my Granny believed until the day she died that that horse had been bitten by a snake. Eventually, she started going outside again, but she was always on the look for a snake.

GrandDad got bit on the nose gathering eggs by a bull snake when I was a kid. He hated them bastards. Probably where I got my hate for them too.

Used to hoe cotton with them when I was a little kid. My Grandmother was hell on a snake with a hoe! She killed them right quick!

I remember my great grandmother killing a rattler at her house one Easter when I was a youngster.

Got my attention with that hoe! She went rabid on it!

Old people were terrified of snakes.

Honestly, I think they felt the devil was in those snakes trying to get them like he did Eve.


We gathered eggs.

And for some reason, I always got pecked.
No one else did.
Then there were the two Turkey cobblers.
They liked to chase me too.
Until I went Babe Ruth on one.

Y'all know you can knock a turkey out?
Drop like a rock they do.
I could already feel the ass beatin'.

What joy to see that hateful bastard get up and stagger around.

Great Grandparents had a big ole rooster that used to chase me as a kid.
Mom said when I was about 4 it started doing it one day and my favorite GrandDad, their oldest son, went in the house, grabbed Great GrandDad’s old 12 ga SxS and blew that ole rooster to smithereens!

And if the cow tried to run away, the snake would take its tail in its mouth, make itself into a hoop, and run the cow down!

I’ve heard that schitt before too from old timers.