Rachel Kruger wasn’t expecting a bucket full of snakes in her backyard when her two boys brought home a bunch of eggs about a month and a half ago.

But that’s exactly what she got roughly five days ago when the eggs started hatching.

On Tuesday, she had nearly 30 fox snakes slithering around in the backyard — prompting a neighbor to call for an animal control officer, who eventually took the snakes to the Jay C. Hormel Nature Center.

“I’m very glad (the center took the snakes),” Kruger said. “I didn’t think they’d hatch.”

She said her sons Michael, 11, and Ryan, 5, found a few clumps of eggs about two blocks from her 909 12th Ave. S.E. home.

Thinking that the eggs had been damaged and that whatever lay inside killed, Kruger and her kids put them in a backyard bucket.

When snakes began hatching, Kruger kept her kids away, for fear that they might be venomous.

She said it took a few days of research to identify them as fox snakes, which are non-venomous but known for mimicking rattlesnakes with their tail vibrations.

Knowing the backyard reptiles were safe, Kruger let Michael and Ryan touch the snakes, which ranged from eight inches to a foot in length.

“The kids played with them for a day,” she said, adding that the family may have kept a few snakes but not the whole bunch.

Then, Austin animal control officer James Dugan arrived to corral the snakes and transport them to the nature center.

Ryan LeVeque, an intern at the center, said there was some discussion between Larry Dolphin, the center’s director, and the state Department of Natural Resources before they were released.

Dolphin was concerned about how the snakes would interact with other local species — and rightfully so, given that Dolphin had never seen a fox snake at the center in his 20 plus years there.

Specifically, the center was concerned that the snakes might be overly predatory toward small mammals, like mice and rats —their primary food source.

However, there are fox snakes in other parts of Austin and Minnesota, and Dolphin and the DNR agreed to release the snakes into what would be a relatively natural environment, LeVeque said.

The reptiles slithered off into the center’s grounds around 2 p.m. Tuesday, LeVeque said.

And the snakes seem to be right at home — LeVeque said he’s been out to look for them a few times since Tuesday afternoon, but the snakes dispersed quickly and blend in well.

“We definitely have the right habitat for them here,” LeVeque said. “They were adapting quickly and adjusting well.”