So I've been wondering why I haven't been getting as many eggs lately. Couple days ago I opened the chicken house to check the water and saw a big snake skin shed inside the house! We have mostly black snakes around my place. So how would I go about catching this thing?

Just find the hole he's getting in through and plug it, you know he is eating plenty of mice that are stealing your chicken food.
Most snakes are more beneficial than harmful.

I've heard of using caged mice to catch snakes. The come through the bars, but the meal holds the fast. I never had occasion to try it, but it does make sense.
Also agree that snakes can be very beneficial. Maybe snake proofing the eggs would be a better option. How to do that, though, you're on your own!
7mm

I fully agree about the benefits of the snakes being around, mice, chipmunks, etc. I would normally not bother one unless it's a copperhead. But, there is no reason the eggs are disappearing other than that big skin calling card it left.

The chickens I have now are carnivores a bird flew in the lot the other day and was gobbled up in seconds doubt a snake would last more than a few minutes.We used to have some ducks and the house was on the ground so you had to crawl in to get the eggs.I learned pretty quick to take my 22 pistol nothing like going toe to toe with a 7ft black snake in cramped quarters.

Get some "deer netting"
Roll it loosely and lay it along the walls of your coop.
Snakes trying to crawl through it get tangled

Take a medium sized fish hook tied to a couple feet of fishing line and anchor it to something immovable. Next take a fresh egg and poke a tiny hole in it with the tip of the fish hook. Insert the hook inside of the egg and place were a snake is likely to find it. Snake eats egg, shell breaks inside snake, hook catches snake. It is fool proof.

Justin, I will do this, sounds like a plan!

My aunt once painted an old door knob white and left it in the nest. Snake didn't return after the knob went missing.

I have a relative that does varmint control and he catches snakes with those sticky cardboard things for mice. When he releases them he just puts vegetable oil on it.

This. It works well.

I have heard that an old golf ball in the nest will work. Need to be the kind with wrapped rubber bands. Snake eats it thinking it to be an egg and his digestive juices melt the outer cover and the band stare coming apart blowing him up from the inside. I don't know if it works or if they even make this type golf ball any more. you used to be able to get glass eggs just for this purpose, but I would have no idea where to find one now. miles

Called by several names but we call them chicken snakes here. I kill every one that I can. They eat lots of quail eggs, baby rabbits and baby squirrels along with song birds and eggs that are in trees. We have some here that swim from tree to tree along lake edges and then climb the trees eating baby anything, from squirrels to wood ducks. They are bigger but I don't know if they are a different snake or just the diet is different. They look nearly alike but could be a close relative. miles

I've always caught them with a 12 gauge

Over-penetrate?

Not if he swings it by the barrel.

Ed

I took a snelled hook, put it in the egg, tied some monofilamnet onto the end of the snelled hook line. Yesterday, the egg is gone and the line is missing about 2 or 3 inches from where the hook was. Something has an egg with a hook in it's gut, but I don't know what.

May have to go to steel leader and braided fishing line...

Yep, I'll se how things go.

When I was a kid the feed store sold glass eggs in a egg carton for getting rid of snakes. Recently one of our friends was using range golf balls. He said the golf balls work fine.

Are you sure your chickens aren't molting?

I'd try to snakeproof the coop, as I like snakes keeping the populations of mice, rats, gophers, starlings, etc down.

But I see your already working with a fishhook set up. Seems like not such a nice way for a critter to go.

The rolled up "deer" fence or what one uses to keep the birds off fruit trees will work. I had some around some tomato plants to keep the quail and pheasants out but kept catching gopher snakes. I went to rabbit fence or large chicken wire.

Good luck,

Geno

Funny in a way, the problems different regions produce.

Never a worry about snakes here, but had to 'owl-proof' my coop last year.

I know some that have to bear-proof theirs with electric fencing.

almost stepped on this one beside the chicken lot yesterday

Allen917,

My grandmother didn't have snakes that bothered her chickens, but she had one of those glass eggs and a home-carved wooden one painted white.She called them 'fool eggs'.

Their primary purpose was to train a hen that wanted to drop eggs on the ground instead of in the nest. She would place the fake egg in the nest and place the hen in the nest with it.
After 1 or 2 tries, the hens usually got the idea.

Myron

Dang I hate Copperheads , rather be around a Rattler anytime.

A good friend lost one of her prize "Service Dogs" this AM, to a damned Mojave,...with our recent rains, they're on the go. Two bites to the head, and the stout, healthy dog was gone, IV anti venom at a local Vet clinic notwithstanding.

The damn thing's still loose on her place, or headed in my general direction.

One of the more troublesome things we're noting is that a LOT of Mojave bites are not forewarned with rattling.

...looks like disenchanted Mau-Maus are not the only ones resorting to ambush, and practice thereof.



Caged mice, maybe ?

Thoughts ?

GTC

Damn a Mojave.

Deadly little bastids.

Was shredding a ranch a few days ago and shredded a large McCartney Rose growth, and there was a big cotton mouth under it. By the time I got the tractor shut down and walked back there with 1911 in hand, it was gone...

I hate cottonmouths worse than anything.

They are born pizzed off.

Barry, if you don't have a cab on your tractor you can get them sumbiches before they disappear. Ask me how I know...

BTW, I'm with you about killing them.

Ed

You can build a funnel trap or just use a minnow trap. It doesn't hurt to put an egg or two inside.
Placed along a wall or other obstruction is best.