too many snakes

My problem is not that I have predatory cats (mine are inside only) or dogs (mine is also useless); my issue is that I have too many snakes - to the point where there were five eggs in my nesting boxes, and now there are none!

I am all in favor of Mother Nature taking her share...but if the snakes keep my hens from laying where they should (in their enclosed pen), it's a problem.  We have mostly eastern rat snakes and black racers, the smallest of which was 3.5 feet long.  My chickens (Rhodies & Australorps) are not going to tangle with anything that big, although I'm sure they'll eat all the babies.  I have avoided killing them because I figured the reason they showed up was because there was a food source (mice/rats) that having chickens usually brings; now I think they've eaten all the vermin, and eggs are an easy meal.  

My birds are free range during the warm months, and we leave their pen open for them to access nesting, etc. - but I have done the lower portion of the fence with 1 in. chicken wire, but that just keep them in after they've eaten an egg and are too fat to fit back through, and there's a good chance that they've taken up residence under my henhouse.  I'll be closing that off with hardware cloth soon, but they also hang out in the walls between the joists.

So I guess what I'm asking for, assuming that fencing off under the henhouse and closing off the wall space doesn't work...what are my options without killing them on site?

I read about filling eggs with salt...

https://i.postimg.cc/qvJGYR5S/Screenshot-20230710-201217-2.png

Option #1
Get more chickens so that you have enough eggs for both you and the snakes. You have to pay the snakes for taking care of all your voles/gopher/moles/etc problems whats an egg or two per day.

Option #2
There are two type of snakes, ones you like and ones that you dislike because they like eating eggs. If only there was a way to collect all the snakes that like to eat egg and then once per day you could just kill them, and feed them to the chickens? If only there was a snake self-harvesting system for such snakes. Luckily for you the problem is the solution, and you already have a system where the "egg-eating" snakes self-select and wait for you to harvest them with their egg filled body that cant even escape.  

I respect your "no kill" philosophy, but on the other hand that's not how nature in fact operates. It's a balance defined by competing (and sometimes cooperating) interests. I just fended off a squirrel invasion, after the tipping point was reached.

All animals have a right to defend with full vigour against unreasonable invasions. It seems there are no controlling predators for your snakes, outside of such animals as you and me. It's an incredibly lousy job, and nobody wants it, but a snake is a steak. To you or your chooks. My 2c.

Option #3

Seeing as how the 1inch chicken wire is almost doing the job, what if you got some half inch or quarter inch chicken wire?
https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/S-25196/Grounds-Maintenance/Chicken-Wire-1-4

I do respect your decision not to kill the snakes. I think it's also important to remember that wild animals weren't meant to have a human provided food source. The extra food will mean more and more snakes, which will lead to overpopulation. Where I live, we have a high population of rattlesnakes. Initially, we left them alone or relocated them when they were in paddocks with the animals. Halfway through our first summer a guard dog was bitten twice, my aunt was bitten, and we had a snake in almost every new pasture. We don't graze all of our land every year, so we're not killing off every single snake, and we don't intentionally hunt them, but whenever there's a rattlesnake in an active paddock or near human activity areas, we catch it and kill it (they do taste good . Are we out to kill off the species? No. For years people have hunted the coyotes and wolves, which are the competing predators for the rattlesnakes' food (rodents, other snakes, small birds, etc). Unintentionally, people have created a larger amount of food for the rattlesnakes, which has made an imbalance. When the predator pressure we're experiencing is from a human created imbalance, I think we have a certain amount of responsibility in reestablishing balance.
Options for non lethal control: collect eggs multiple times a day, get peafowl or guineafowl, or look into a guard dog who would warn you about the snakes.
Another thought...are you sure that it's the snakes and not your hens eating the eggs? I'm running into an issue right now where a couple of my chickens and a large number of my geese have decided that eggs are delicious. I've tried the mustard method in the past, and nothing has helped for any length of time. I'm going to butcher the egg eaters, so hopefully that will resolve my issue, but you may want to double check that it's not your hens eating them.

Making a habitat far away from your garden might work.  Maybe an out-of-the-way corner somewhere.

Brush piles make great habitats for wildlife.

If anyone decides to make one there is a PEP BB (Badge Bit) for making one:

https://permies.com/wiki/49/108150/pep-animal-care/Brush-Pile-PEP-BB-animal#1858822