Snakes in a Chicken Coop: Honest Answer After 12 Years

Free Guide · Snakes and Backyard Chickens

Twelve years, not one snake. I would love to tell you that was all clever design. Most of it is not.

Do chickens attract snakes? In twelve years of running Chicken City I have never seen a snake in it, near it, or anywhere in the paddock around it. But I will be straight with you: the single biggest reason is where I live, not what I built. I am in one of the colder parts of Victoria and there simply are not many snakes here. The design helps, and I will explain which parts, but location is doing most of the work.

This was one of the most common questions on my Chicken City tour, and it came up over and over. It is also a question I have a personal stake in, because I am genuinely frightened of snakes. I would get over it, because I love this place, but it would be a challenge.

The short answer is no. Never in the twelve years since I built it, or the eleven since the chickens arrived, has a snake got into Chicken City. There has never even been evidence that one tried.

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The honest version, in full

Including the bit of the answer I wish were more useful to people who live somewhere with more snakes than I do.

Reason one, and it is the annoying one: location

I want to lead with this rather than bury it, because it is the largest part of the answer and it is the part you cannot copy.

I am in Victoria, in one of the coldest parts of it. There are snakes here. There are not many. If I were up in Queensland dealing with pythons, I suspect this would be a completely different conversation, and I think a python would very much like to get its greasy mitts into Chicken City.

So if you have come here hoping for a snake-proofing method that beat the odds, I would rather disappoint you honestly than take credit for my postcode.

Lest this sound like a charmed life

I am not short of predators. I have foxes left, right and centre. There are cameras all over the property and I see them every single night. I have avoided the snake problem. I have very much not avoided the fox problem.

Reason two: it is a very busy place to be a snake

This part is design, and it was deliberate for several reasons, of which snakes were only one.

Chicken City sits inside a paddock that is surrounded on all sides by the big animals. Tony the pony, and Remy and Ruby the goats, are out there patrolling 24 hours a day.

On top of that there is constant human traffic. Not just us tending the chickens, but everyone going in and out to the big animals, the tractor coming down, and the firewood we store there. It is a thoroughfare.

If I were a snake, I would look at all that and decide it was a high traffic area worth avoiding. I think that constant presence of people and large animals does a lot to keep them out of the area entirely, before the structure is even a factor.

It probably helps a little with foxes too, although there are a hundred other things doing far more of that work, and that deserves its own video.

Also on the channel

The mesh, up close

If the structure is the part you actually want, this is the build video: the gauge of the sheet mesh on the outside walls, and how far it continues underground.

What I would rely on if I did have snakes

Here is the part that does transfer, and it is the same answer as for every other predator: the mesh.

The external walls are fine gauge sheet mesh with very small openings, overlapped and fixed on properly, and continued down into the ground rather than stopping at the surface. Genuinely, I do not think anything is getting through that. If I lived in Queensland with pythons about, I would be investing in exactly this, in the same way I invested in it here for foxes.

The other thing worth mentioning is the gates. There is buffer padding around them, so there is no gap at the edges for something to squeeze through. That was not a snake decision at all: we put it in when we kept budgies, because I was worried they would fly out through the gaps. It kept the budgies in, and it happens to close the one obvious weak point in an otherwise sealed structure.

Which is a decent lesson in itself. Some of the best features in this place solved a completely different problem first.

If you do live with snakes

I am not the person to tell you how to handle a snake, and I would not try. Snake risk is very local: which species you have, what they are after, and what time of year they are active all vary enormously. If snakes are a real presence where you are, the people worth listening to are the ones in your area, and if you find one, call a licensed snake catcher rather than going anywhere near it. What I can offer is the structural half of it, which is the mesh and the gaps, and that part is the same wherever you live.

All of this is, in the end, an enormous amount of effort spent keeping a group of birds safe so they can hand me breakfast. Which is roughly why there is no chicken whatsoever in my No-Chicken Chicken Salt.

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Where a run is actually weak

The gap around the gates

Almost everything else gets built tight and then the gates are left with a finger's width all round. Buffer material closes it.

Mesh that stops at ground level

The same weakness that lets a fox dig under is an open door at the base of a wall. Continue the mesh below the surface.

A gauge chosen for chickens rather than for what is outside

Wide gauge mesh keeps birds in. It does not keep much out. Save the cheap wire for internal dividers.

A quiet, forgotten corner

If part of your setup is somewhere nobody goes for weeks at a time, that is the part wildlife will find first.

Frequently asked questions

Do chickens attract snakes?

I cannot speak for every region, only for twelve years here, in which I have never seen one in or near Chicken City. Where I live there are very few snakes to begin with, which I think matters more than anything I did.

Can a snake get through chicken wire?

Standard chicken wire has large openings and is not built to keep things out. Fine gauge sheet mesh is a completely different product, and it is what my external walls are made of.

Does having other animals nearby keep snakes away?

I believe the constant activity helps, and it is one reason this sits inside a paddock with the goats and the pony. I would treat it as a contributing factor rather than a strategy on its own.

Would this design work where there are pythons?

I have never had to test it, so I will not promise. What I can say is that I do not believe anything is getting through that external mesh, and if I lived somewhere with pythons that is exactly where I would spend the money.

What should I do if I find a snake in my coop?

Keep away from it and call a licensed snake catcher. I am not qualified to advise on handling snakes and I would not attempt it myself.

Building your own version of this?

I have been refining Chicken City for over ten years and I share what works, what failed, and what I would do differently. Come along for the rest of it.

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