Do hens assist in keeping snakes at bay? True, but unlike guinea fowl, they are not snake hunters. Chickens are capable of killing snakes, but they do not go out of their way to do so, and they target only the tiniest ones that they can swallow whole.

Silky Terrier Dog Breed Playing Aro... Silky Terrier Dog Breed Playing Around

During the day, chickens would slay snakes nonstop. So, yeah, it is correct. During the day, a chicken will murder a snake.

However, things are very different at night.

Chickens are less vigilant when they roost. They tend to go into a sort of power-down mode, and they don’t like to move much unless it’s absolutely necessary. Of course, if they’re frightened from their roost by a predator attempting to take it, they’ll come to life.

When a snake hunts, however, it usually only makes one attempt to strike. They are really swift and precise. Rat snakes are nocturnal hunters who will hunt chickens the same way they kill mice. The rat snake has already wrapped itself around the chicken, squeezing it to death before the bird even realizes what’s going on.

Unfortunately, your chicken will most likely be dead by the time you shoot the snake in the head to get it off of it. However, you will have killed a snake that had been preying on your hens, and that snake will no longer be murdering them.

Are snakes afraid of chickens?

The majority of snakes are too little to act as predators on mature chickens. Rather than that, they are typically predators of eggs and early chicks. (The giant snakes live in rain forests, and we believe that very few backyard chicken owners will venture into India or South America.) Although very small snakes pose no threat to your chicken, they may prey on insects, worms, tadpoles, minnows, salamanders, snails, or tiny frogs. In comparison, your hens will very certainly seek and consume small racers, garters, and even snakes and may even regard snakes as a special delicacy. 

However, if the snakes are large enough to steal your eggs, you may not notice anything other than the missing eggs. Even larger snakes can fit through extremely small gaps and are notoriously difficult to keep out of the coop. However, after consuming an egg, they may become briefly too huge to exit the same aperture through which they came, if it was a close fit! 

While the majority of snakes provide no threat to your mature birds, predation by snakes does occur. Because snakes consume their prey whole, snakes that swallow a whole chicken will be unable to escape the coop again unless the coop already has a chicken-sized aperture. Suppose the snakes manage to escape your coop after consuming chicken. In that case, you will likely find no evidence, making it impossible to determine if a snake or human-caused your loss because humans sometimes steal chickens.