Last week I was admiring my baby guineas and my two baby Marans when I realized, there was only ONE baby Maran in the brooder. Then it dawned on me that I used to have WAY more white guineas. At first I thought that they had flown the coop. But then I realized that one of the baby baby guineas was missing. There was no way it could have gotten out. Jon and I talked and decided that most likely when the kids were taking the 4 wheeler out, the cat was getting in and snatching a snack. We were still left uneasy with the whole situation though. Our babies were vulnerable.
I headed off to Dallas yesterday leaving Jon in charge of the daily workings of the farm. I was sound asleep last night when my phone started ringing at about midnight. It was Jon's ring tone and I was terrified at what it might be. I answered and he says, "Check your email right now!". Still a little groggy and confused I hung up and looked at my email. This is the picture he sent me.
Mystery solved. Jon said he was just about to go to bed when he heard noises coming from the brooder he had never heard before. He said it sounded like a car alarm going off. He ran in there to find on chick constricted to death, one in the process of being constricted, and the snake on the prowl for another bite. Most of the chicks had flown out of the brooder (in spite of our attempts to wire them in as seen in the picture). When Jon killed the snake with a near by shovel, several of them flew into the garage and one actually flew into the house and is till unaccounted for! He managed to round them all up, except for the one in the house, and put them back in the brooder. We lost a blue guinea. That makes me sad because we only hatched 3 blues and they are really pretty.
Hopefully this was the only snake visiting our buffet.
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