Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!

[Bogertophis]

LOL caught in the act! Hope he was peacefully relocated. I feel bad for the chicken and its owner but I wouldn't mind having snakes around my chicken coop as long as they weren't regularly wreaking havoc on the chickens or their eggs. Chicken keeping almost always comes with rats so it's nice to have animals in the area that can help keep the rodent population down.

Unfortunately chickens don't welcome snakes as protectors, and snakes WILL eat their chicks or their eggs if they can, & they'll TRY to eat chickens even when they're too big-snakes do not have to ability to logically size up their prey before killing it for consumption. They sometimes kill rabbits too, then find out "oops, it fit the last time (a baby!) but not this one"? So unfortunately, it doesn't work out having a snake to guard your hen house. My sister used to raise chickens & sometimes a gopher snake would get in thru a crack, gulp down a few eggs, then be too fat to get away thru the too-small hole he used to enter. My sister would have to open the door & shoo them out... Busted!