Early Morning Antics

Today started like any other...that is until I went out at 5.30 am to feed the chickens and was confronted by a snake.  It was not too far inside and lying next to the water bowl.  I looked at it and even thought maybe I should try to catch it or turn the water bowl over it and then common sense told me otherwise.  I don't know snakes well enough to know if it was poisonous or not, although I didn't think so, I just thought it was a juvenile of some sort because of its size.

Anyway I backed out and locked the door again and marched as quickly as I could to the house to call Johan.  When we went back, it was still there and he quickly scooped it up with the crook of the walking stick and took it outside the coop.  We are still unsure what snake it is but are leaning towards a juvenile spitting cobra.  It is brown in colour all over the body, with a diamond shaped head, but it does have an orange stripe above the mouth.  The orange stripe could mean it is a red lipped herald, however its under belly is not pale, nor does it have a black eyebrow.  A brown house snake has a white stripe and this one doesn't...also it is too long for a house snake.  So I have no idea....

Just the other day I mentioned to Johan that something is stealing the chicken eggs as we had 2 broody hens that had been sitting for a while and suddenly they were up and roaming around with all the other chickens.  When I went to check their nests, there was only one egg in each of them, no more and when they started sitting there were at least 6 under them.

I don't think this particular snake is the egg eater as it is too small, which means there is another snake around, a bigger one and I hope I don't walk into that one in a hurry....