Here’s our first Lesson in owning Chickens. I’ve been around chickens pretty much all my life, but all the dirty work with caring for them was all done by my dad. The only thing I helped with was picking up the eggs and cooking them, minus that one time he went out of town when eggs were hatching and I had to wear gloves to take them away from the hens so the red ants wouldn’t kill the chicks…that’s Texas. So, here we are with our own “farm” and our own chickens and roosters to care for and we were so happy to see them finally laying eggs (6 of them!). Here I go to check on them today and BAM! 4 eggs GONE! WHAT THE HELL! Our precious eggs snatched. I feel so robbed. Who could be the culprit? It could only have been a SNAKE, because my dogs would have gone ham if they saw or smelled another animal.

Last year when we closed on the land we came out on the weekend just to soak it in and run around to discover every inch of it, and of course we brought our dog. Within an hour of being here she got bit in the face by a huge Rattle Snake. Scariest moment ever, and it just so happens she had been snooping around the well house. We ended up taking her to an emergency Vet clinic and paid an arm and a leg for the anti-venom and her two night stay. Needless to say I got kind of scared knowing we were going to have to deal with snakes and not just rat snakes or garden snakes we are talking RATTLE snakes too. Now, after doing some research and finding out that rattle snakes don’t eat eggs because of whatever reason I feel a little better knowing I wont be running into one in my coop. I need to take action NOW before it comes back (it will) and wreaks more havoc on my poor girls. Any advice on how to trap and kill this thing without hurting my chickens? I know it had to be a snake because like I said my dogs would have gone crazy if it was any other animal and the only other creature sneaky enough to get in without being noticed would be a snake. Its probably living under the well house too .

The good thing is I now have 3 Hens laying eggs. I had put a couple of small tires in the coop and filled them with hay about two weeks ago and I was bummed the Hens weren’t making their nests in them. Today I finally saw one of my girls making good use of one and an egg already in there! So yay for that!

I got some pictures of our chickens today. Please don’t mind the mess. We have so much work and cleaning to do still.

Until next time!

-Cristina

Here are the tire nests and one of the Hens using it! 

Little Black Hen is the one my dad has had for years. Most of these Hens are from her. 

Older Rooster and two Hens plus the mess.Our young Rooster…he’s so flashy. We still haven’t even filled the water line trench! Lots of work to be done around here! Anyone want to fund our tractor? 🙂