A Reddit user named BigSquiby posted a photo of a snake hole in their chicken coop, and the caption reads like a confession. They moved their chicks to the main coop, a western rat snake got to one of them, and they found a hole they ran a water pipe into years ago and completely forgot about. Their takeaway? Not the snake's fault. Just a snake doing snake things. Their fault for leaving the hole. And if you're putting in baby chicks this spring, maybe do a walkthrough of the coop.
That last line is the one that sticks. Because this isn't a story about a predator being clever or a chicken being unlucky. It's a story about a hole you forgot existed. And if you keep chickens long enough, you have that hole. Maybe it's where the extension cord sneaks in for the heated waterer. Maybe it's a gap under the door you meant to seal with a scrap of wood but never did. Maybe it's the exact same water-pipe entry you installed three winters ago and haven't thought about since. The snake didn't invent a new way in. It just used the door you left open.
We love our feathered friends, but we also love convenience. We run pipes, we run cords, we cut little access points, and then we forget they're there. The coop looks solid from the outside, but a snake doesn't need a grand entrance. It needs a gap the width of its head. That's it. And a western rat snake, a black snake, isn't a villain. It's a hungry animal following the same rules as your chickens: find food, find shelter, survive. The blame doesn't belong on the snake. It belongs on the hole.
So here's the practical take. Before you put those spring chicks in the main coop, walk every inch of it. Get on your hands and knees if you have to. Look at every place a pipe, a wire, or a hose enters the structure. Look at the corners where the walls meet the floor. Look at the roof line. If you can fit a finger through, a snake can fit its whole body through. Seal it with hardware cloth, caulk, or a chunk of wood. Do it now, while the chicks are still in the brooder. Do it before you have to post a photo of a hole you forgot about, with a caption that starts with "my fault." Because that's the only part of this story you get to control.