Snake in my coop

Last week my father saw a snake in his kitchen.....after searching for over 24 hours we found where it had come in ( a loose floor board, now fixed ) but no snake....

A few days later I see this hole in the ground in my chicken coop...

Thinking it maybe another mouse hole, there are a lot of mice in this desert, it's been a on going issue every spring for the last 20 years we've lived here, I flooded it with water

hoping to drive them out....nothing

I did the same thing the next day...this has worked in the past...still nothing

all the while I'm thinking it could be a snake, I've heard there a few living in the desert too lol....although I've only seen 3 the whole time here ( on our land )...I will point out I DO NOT go looking for them ;)

 

Our hens had gone broody for about six weeks but had started to lay again....our egg count dropped by 4 to 6 a day

so by this point it is clearly not mice as I was hoping lol

the 3rd day proved it to be a snake :(

 

luckily my son was right there on the other side of the coop to see it come out...while I have nothing against snakes......eating my eggs is out of the question ( one of our hatchlings disappeared as well, it was just starting to pop out next day it was gone )....

 

we did get it....still not knowing what kind it was we weren't going to take the chance....after it was no longer a threat we were able to get a better look 

 

                                          it didn't have rattles thankfully

at this point it's colors had faded quite a bit, was brighter green and yellow...
still don't know for sure, but think it was a bull snake...

My sister was at my parent's place...oh yeah they live next door to us, so it wasn't a stretch to think the snake could have moved to our place.....at least I'm hoping it's the same one.....Dad said it was about the right size, just over 3 feet....how he could tell in the dark with it moving that fast....I have no clue lol ....I went over to get dad to see if it was the same kind, when my sister Nancie said she wanted to see it...and asked if we wanted to be shown how to skin it....cool....

                                     it's now pinned to some cardboard drying....not sure what we will be using it for yet
 
                     Hubby was so surprised that we took care of the matter without
                                              even calling him at work......
                    hey man nothing messes around with our chickens....
we didn't even think about getting help we were not going to let it get away and come back again.....
it clearly had been eating mice, babies....thinking that many eggs to be disappearing most likely means more around....more work needs to be done on the coops....