Snake in the henhouse

One week after Mortimer solved the Austin Animal Cracker heist, there was another hen house crisis. Grandma had bought ten chickens from a salesman from Prairieville, actually a shirt-tail relative, who had come through earlier in the week. These were to replace the ones eaten by the coyote. Even with the new chickens, the egg yield still seemed light. She was used to getting between 36 and 42 eggs each morning, but was now getting 22 to 24, barely enough to feed the family breakfast. Grandma decided something was getting her eggs.

Uncle Loren was summoned, and the problem was explained. As usual, he was anxious to help. He set up a cot in the hen house and waited in the dark with his .410 gauge shotgun. This time, he also had a 12 inch Army knife, which he had talked Uncle Vernon out of. This was the very knife that figured so prominently in many of Uncle Vernon's hand-to-hand combat experiences in the second world war.

It was a quiet night. No coyotes came and Uncle Loren was somewhat disappointed. At first light, the chickens awakened and left the hen house. Uncle Loren carefully counted the eggs. There were 41. Great! He hurried to tell grandma about all the eggs. Grandma was happy to hear about the eggs, and said she would get them after breakfast.

After washing the dishes, grandma went to the hen house to gather her eggs. When she counted the eggs, there were what? Only 35? Whoa! She immediately went back to the house and got Loren.

When they returned to the henhouse, Grandma said "You said there are 41 eggs. Where are they? I count only 35."

They both counted the eggs again. Thirty-three. Then Loren noticed the nest at the end of one roost. He said "Wait a minute. I remember there were four eggs in that nest. Now there is only one." He took a closer look and then he saw it - a huge bull snake, probably six feet in length. The snake's coloring blended so well with the surrounding straw nests that it was difficult to see. There were several huge bulges in the snakes' body - eggs it had swallowed whole. They had found the culprit!

The snake was moving and hissing loudly, but wasn't going anywhere - unusual because normally when a bull snake is approached, it quickly slithers away. This snake however, had a problem. It had eaten several eggs and then entered a nest through a knot hole in one of the pine planks separating the nests. Then it ate another one. Bad mistake: The snake was effectively trapped, with eggs on both sides of the knot hole.

Uncle Loren sent Grandma back to the house while he used Uncle Vernon's Army knife to slay the snake using standard snake-slaying procedures.

In the following days, Uncle Loren caught 4 more large bull snakes in the hen house. He did not kill these however because, as Grandma pointed out, bull snakes are good snakes because they are not venomous and normally eat rats and mice. Uncle Loren relocated the snakes to the barn, about 100 yards away, where mice and rats were plentiful.

A few days later, Mortimer heard the snake story. He was still suspicious that there could be more snakes, so he was poking around the hen house. As he rounded the back corner of the hen house he saw several small snakes slither quickly under one area.   Mortimer ran to get Uncle Loren, and showed him where the snakes were. The henhouse was built on cement blocks and there were spaces under it where snakes could hide. Uncle Loren, with the aid of a flashlight, and a large rake, reached under the henhouse and brought out the entire nest, snakes and all. There was a lot of slithering and writhing, and snakes were going in all directions. But with Mortimer's help, the snakes, about 20 in all, were rounded up and put into a bucket. They were taken to the barn and turned loose.

The egg yield returned to normal and even surpassed the old record, with Grandma getting 50 eggs on some mornings. After this, Mortimer always kept a sharp eye out for bull snakes, especially around the henhouse.

Unfortunately, events of ominous portent began occurring about three weeks later: chickens were disappearing again at night.