Precious delivery

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Are you reading this picture?


We had bred Charlene to Mt. Everest last year, along with Cotton and Lucy. Cotton had a beautiful male cria that only lived for seven days. We thought that Lucy and Charlene had either miscarried or never got pregnant. Charlene never did spit off before Everest had to return home.


About five days ago, I started thinking I was seeing "activity" on Charlene. Then, three days ago, I swore I saw a leg pushing out of Charlene's side. After feeling her belly, we felt movement and just knew she was pregnant.


Charlene was at 360 days gestation when she finally delivered her little female cria.


Can you see how much this little girl looks like her mother? She is cute as a button!


Blessings abound here at the ranch. We are praising God for His tender mercies, after the loss of the little male cria. What a blessing indeed...

A loooooooong story...

It happened again. While collecting chicken eggs out of the nesting boxes, my daughter found another egg eater! These darned rat snakes love to feast on chicken eggs. As you can see, this particular snake is BIG!



Tim had me take various pictures to show a friend of his how you know a snake is not poisonous. If the head is triangular, the snake is generally poisonous. If the eyes look like cat eyes, it is generally poisonous. See how the eyes on this snake are not "cat like"? See how the head is not triangular?


A blunt tail indicates a poisonous snake. The tail on this snake is pointed. So, it is not poisonous. This is a rat snake. They generally feed on mice and rats. So, they are good to have around....unless you have small chicks or eggs around. Yes, they will eat small chicks. We've lost a few to snakes.


As you can see here, my daughter does not take after me when it comes to snakes. I will touch it's back when someone else is holding it, but that is as far as I go. Someone else has to catch it. If no one is around to help, I kill it! My husband believes in the "catch and release" program for snakes. We have friends that raise horses on their property and they love for us to give them the snakes. It keeps their rodent population down. If we can't get by their place, we simply release the snakes in a field far, far away from our property. We have a no return policy here at our place.