Hi there.
Had a bit of a scare today! I've had the day off work, because my wife wanted to go to Bris Vegas with her mum and do the Craft Show thing. No complaints there, my young fella Loki (2) and I did a few things... like take his wagon and a couple of buckets for a walk.:) Went up through our back gate and collected horse manure from the sports ground, which we brought back for my worm farm. While we were at the garden shed, Loki pointed towards the chook pen, so I grabbed a scoop of grain and went to check on the new chickens. He carried the scoop, so I let him into the pen and he headed for the grain trough (which is very close to the tin chook house), which I was pleasantly surprised at, instead of tipping the whole lot on the ground. Well, he was about a foot from the trough when I spied the bugger...a bloody great brown snake between the trough and chook house!!:eek::eek: I yelled at Loki to stop, which scared him and promptly dropped the scoop by which time I raced from the gate and lifted him away. The snake made a quick escape... on par with mine, and disappeared under the slab which has been dug away by chooks and rats probably. As I retreated I had a bit of a look at him (or her) and although it was all tangled up over itself I reckon it would have been about 6"+ in girth, and shiney gun metal grey, not a pattern to be seen....so was no python! Tell you what, made me shake for a bit, thinking how close my little fella was to it.:o And now I've gotta face it when ever I go to get the eggs, as I'll be reluctant to let my girls go there now.
We've been on this 3 1/2 acres- half of which is lightly timbered- for nearly 3 yrs, and I've only seen one snake before (under the front steps) but with all my junk around I'm not surprised. And as my stepfather always said, if you've got chooks, you'll have snakes.
Cheers,