[masraum]

I'm OK with snakes. I prefer them to be non-venomous and away from the house. Unfortunately, we have snakes on our property, and while we do have several species of non-venomous, most of the snakes that I see are copperheads. The two bits of info about copperheads that I take as positive are 1 they tend to be small and 2 they have all seemed very timid and just want to be left alone.

I know that #1 is probably not much of a benefit. I assume smaller fangs and a smaller mouth has got to be a bit of a benefit, and even more so, if the whole snake is only 12-18" long, the strike distance most be greatly reduced. The only con about them is that a small snake is potentially harder to see.

But, I've run into several of them, and 99% of time they freeze if you see them. The other 1% of the time they slither away. I've never seen a copperhead act defensive. I've poked and prodded and moved them and not one has ever opened its mouth or done anything to indicate that it was going to be defensive. For that I'm thankful.