So, I go down to the chicken pen to feed the little hens today. I'm opening the metal trashcan where I store their food and I realize there is a four foot long black snake in the pen with its head through the wire, right by my foot. I started involuntarily screaming. I could not stop screaming as my entire physical body and psyche adjusted to the shock and horror of the situation! Logically, I know a black snake will not harm me - except to send me into post traumatic shock syndrome. But my body continued to scream just the same.
From a safe distance, I observed that the snake had apparently made a meal of the little hens' eggs and was so fat that it could not squeeze through the fence in the same manner in which it had entered. I called the dogs over, hoping they would kill it, but neither dog was disturbed by the snake's presence whatsoever. However, the snake was very disturbed by the dogs, and tried to retreat to safety. Its only option was to draw its head back into the pen. The little hens realized there was a snake in their midst, and all of them began to attack that snake like tiny ninja warriors. This caused the snake to recoil and to frantically look for shelter. I have to say, watching the snake lift its body in an effort to hide beneath the chicken coop was one of the most disturbing things I have seen in recent times. It is creepy the way a snake can lift almost a third of its body straight up.
The damn thing took shelter INSIDE the chicken coop. Inside the coop - where I put my hands to get the eggs. Where those little hens shelter. Where I do not know how long it will be before I am brave enough to go inside the pen, and open the coop to make sure that serpent is gone.
I need a snake wrangler. I need a tranquilizer. I should probably consider moving back to the city - in a high rise apartment - a minimum of 15 stories above ground. I need to move to Ireland where there are no snakes, as long as that is true.
6 comments:
OMG!!!!!! Though not particularly a-feared of snakes, I imagine I would have reacted just as you did. Wow. I admit I am still grinning and doing high fives into the empty air, at the vision of your mini-ninja hens. Probably their dinosaur ancestry coming out, attacking an interloper species. Where is a Ma-an (aka snake wrangler) when you need one? Maybe you could go out to the highway and flag down a big, manly trucker.
Oh yeah, those little chickens were tearing into that snake, even Small Girl! They were making warrior screams and flying at that snake with vicious pecks. Those little Dutch hens are bad to the bone! They spread their little wings out and look fierce. And Big Hen has surely tangled with snakes before as she has survived everything this wild place had to offer up. I read that chickens will literally "escort" a snake off their property. I should get a HUGE FLOCK of the biggest chickens I can find and let them free range and clear this place of snakes....
Or... flag down a manly trucker to wrangle snakes....
Snake wrangler, at your service ma'am. Whatcha doin this weekend?
Creepy snakes and your encounter runs a chill up my spine; I get along with snakes as long as they're at the end of long stick and no closer. I don't mind an encounter as long as I know exactly where they are.
Oh yeah... I like snakes okay -- far, far away from me!
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