Snakes | Friends or Foes?

I am not a snake lover or a snake hater. Living on a farm means we simply coexist. That is, until they invade my henhouse, and then coexistence turns to outright war.

As I gathered the eggs one day recently, I happened to notice a bit of something dark deep down  in the straw of the nest box. Thinking I’d clean it out, I reached under the straw. You guessed it! A black snake was hiding there.

I grabbed him by what I hoped was the tail and pulled. And pulled…and pulled…until finally all nearly 6 ft. of him was writhing in the air.

And there was the evidence. Six definite egg shapes bulging from his otherwise streamlined body.

He was tried and convicted in a single glance, and he was executed a short time later.

.

Now I hear some of you out there telling me that snakes are an important part of our ecosystem, they keep the mouse and rat population at bay, and that I should catch and release. Others say that killing snakes in Missouri is illegal. Here are my replies.

·         Snakes ARE important to our ecosystem, and they are welcome in my forests, my ponds, my fields and my fence rows, but NOT in my henhouse.

·         Snakes DO eat mice and rats, but I have a barn cat who’s quite adept at the same skills and who doesn’t rob the chicken coop.

·         There is no time in my schedule for the luxury of catch and release, and in this instance I was too irritated to consider it even if I had all day.

·         The Wildlife Code of Missouri does not address killing snakes per se, but it does permit Missourians to protect their property from wildlife. That’s all the permission I need, because that snake devoured my future laying hens, or at the very least my breakfast.

For now, the snakes on my farm and I are back to coexistence. I hope they’re busy spreading the word that things can turn ugly if they visit my chicken coop.