Yesterday, I turned my eight, two month old chicks out of the brooder and into my big chicken pen for the first time. I left them out in the pen all day. Inside the pen I have a chicken coop with roosting poles inside. The coop has a door on it. You have to train new chicks how to use the roost poles in the coop or otherwise when it gets dark they will just sit down somewhere in the corner of the pen for the night. I generally will spend about a week of training, catching them right at dark every day and putting them on the roost poles in the coop and shutting the door.

I got busy with a project yesterday and at dark I forgot all about my chicks being out in the pen. About 10:00 p.m last night it came one hellacious thunderstorm here. Heavy rain, thunder and lots of lightning. Sitting on the sofa, listening to the storm outside, all of a sudden I remember about my chicks outside. Crap! I grab a flashlight and head out to the pen in the rain, thunder and lightning. Sure enough, there was all eight of my chicks huddled up in a corner of the pen, out in the rain.

I grabbed up two of them and headed to the coop. Set my light down in the floor of the coop so I could see and then I put the chicks on the roost. I left my light laying there and went back to the corner of the pen to grab two more chicks. It was lightning so badly I didn't need a flashlight to find the chicks. When I got back to the coop I sat the second set of chicks on the roost and turned around to head out the door to go get two more.

Just as I got to the doorway of the coop and started out, a danged 4' long grey rat snake, AKA the "Chicken Snake", FELL out of the top of the coop and landed on my neck and my shoulder. I DID not see it before it fell on me! The first idea that I had of a snake being there was when it hit my neck and my shoulder. I IMMEDIATELY knew what it was just from its slimy feel on my neck. Keep in mind, that I had laid my flashlight on the floor of the coop, angled up toward the roost poles so that I could see where to place the chicks on the poles.

Oh my Lord, I screamed and hollered like a 12 year old girl! Then I went to trying to run and dance all at the same time. I was about to kill myself inside that dark chicken coop with a 4' chicken snake on top of me. Finally my adrenalin kicked in. I snatched that snake off of me and slung it to the ground outside the coop. Then I grabbed my light and found the snake outside and commenced to stomping that joker as fast and as hard as I could stomp. I know I must have looked like a wild, crazy old man, dancing, jumping and stomping around in all that rain, thunder and lightning, on top of that ol' chicken snake.

But that ain't even the funniest part of this whole story! Right in the middle of all that jumping, dancing, and stomping, a HUGE clap of thunder and one of the largest bolt of lightning I've ever seen, happened. I thought I had been hit by the lightning bolt. It hit something really close to me. I took off running to get to the house and almost fell in the mud trying to get out of the chicken pen gate. When I got inside the house I was drenched to the bone and my heart was racing ninety to nothing! It took 10 minutes for my heart rate to settle back down. I just totally abandoned those other four chicks.

I told Ms. Renee about the snake and the lightning both almost taking me out and all she did was roll in the floor and laugh at me. Not an ounce of sympathy from her!

I waited until the storm passed, went back outside, put the other four chicks on the roost and shut the door on them.

Then I stopped back by and stomped on that chicken snake some more just for the sake of making me feel better about him scaring the piss outa me!

Yep, I know I acted plum stoopid!

I would have lost it and tore the place apart getting out.

To bad nobody was there to video it. Good times.

Lord that's funny

Snakes bring out certain emotions and feeling......you merely expressed yours during a light show. Makes you wonder what was going thru the chicks mind. LOL

same thing happened to me last year. i was amazed i could still run a 4.5 40 yard dash at 62 yo.

Glad you didn’t hurt yourself

That's funny....But had it happened to me there woudla been multiple gunshots heard as I was dispatching the snake

Are you related to me or Ben2?

Oh my. Thanks for that mental image show. I bet you’re sore today after all that.

those number pale in comparison to the day i stepped on a 4 foot timber rattier.after i out jumped micheal jordan and sprinted away. i caught my breath and killed him.i was very lucky he hit me ankle high on my snake boots.iam the type person who me and a snake would find each other in a church.just lucky i guess.

Usually when something crazy happens to me, if there were no witnesses it didn't happen

Good thing it wasn’t one of these. You woulda killed yourself.

since its sunday and our church is still closed.i thought i would get up and testify.lol

haha

They would have found me dead from a massive coronary(aka covid 19 for some).

dont know shaw that thing got thighs like beyonce. might have manned up for them fried frog legs.