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Post by genebo on May 28, 2014 2:48:47 GMT
To help me keep my Dexters healthy, I keep guinea fowl to eat the ticks. Predators reduce the guinea population, so I have to hatch and raise replacements.
I had noticed that once I hatched 30 guinea keets, th number didn't seem to increase, even though I added a new keet almost every day. Two keets showed signs of injury and died. Another showed signs of injury, but was surviving.
That's when I noticed a small black snake curled in a corner of the brooder, with a suspicious lump in it's middle. I guessed that the smake had gotten in through the 1/2" holes in the wire walls and floor, then eaten a guinea keet. That made him too big around to get back out.
I scooped the snake up with a shovel and took it to where I could get a good look at it. Sure enough, you could make out the shape of the guinea inside. I dispatched the snake and buried it's head in the garden (recycling). Then I cut it open and removed the guinea keet. It was shocking that a snake so small it could squeeze through a 1/2" hole could swallow a guinea keet that large.
I guessed that the snake had tried to eat some other keets. Probably constricted them enough to break bones, but didn't get to swallow them. Those were the crippled keets that died. The same thing must have happened to the other keet, the one that didn't die. It must have been only slightly injured. Once I removed the snake, that keet resumed normal activity.
Here' for your viewing pleasure, is the snake and the guinea keet that I removed from inside the snake:
Yuk!
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Post by wvdexters on May 28, 2014 14:23:17 GMT
Glad to see you got the culprit. A black snake got into ours last summer. We lost 3/6 before we finally caught him in there. I guess they just keep getting away with it until their prey finally gets large enough to trap them inside.
That is something when you compare the sizes in your photo. Who'd think he could even get something that size down.
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Post by genebo on May 28, 2014 15:01:35 GMT
That is what amazed me, too!
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Post by jamshundred on May 31, 2014 12:50:42 GMT
Looking at that photo gives me the creeps. . . . .and thinking about "the creeps" made me wonder why we humans in such vast numbers are so uneasy with this species? For the most part they will try to avoid us as much as we try to avoid them. I had a black snake curled up around eggs in one of my nests with a big bump in the middle of his body. I stood and thought about how to get him out of that nest for a while without gathering the nerve to "bag" him. I decided to go find the barbecue tongs because I am NOT doing it by hand! Finished my other chores and never could get up the nerve to tackle the blacksnake. Later in the afternoon I decided to "conquer my fear" and get the snake but he was gone. Yikes! Now look what I've done! Where is he? I cannot walk into the chicken house without checking out the floor, the walls, the rafters, searching by eye everywhere looking for him. That chicken house is awful close to my house! I find myself looking around carefully inside it too! How long after a meal before a snake returns for another? Oh my goodness. . . why didn't I just deal with it, bag him, and relocate him to a neighoring state as I had planned! ( On the other side of the Potomace river for sure!)
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Post by wvdexters on Jun 12, 2014 14:03:09 GMT
Hey Judy you'll love this. Every once in a while we get them in the house. Especially when the weather is really dry. We find little ones in the basement and there was a huge shedded skin in the attic once.
A few yrs ago the house cat was acting crazy and hubby/son found a 3ft+ black snake laying stretched out behind the couch in the living rm. Right where I like to sit; thankfully I wasn't home. Long story short, they got it out but it cost me a nice lamp shade. LOL
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