Welcome to the country! Snakes edition

[masraum]

MattDavis stopped by today to very generously gift me some gauges and freon for my home AC.

We never use the front door, but he did. I opened the door, and then the screen door and stepped out. We were standing there chatting with our dachshund hanging out with us. I don't remember why, but I looked down and had a bit of a shock. I knew that it would happen eventually, but I didn't expect it to be that kind of surprise.




I'm guessing that he's a rat snake. He was 3-4' long, I think, (I didn't take the time to measure him) and not very big around. He had a snack. I'm guessing, probably mouse, but we have barn swallows nesting on the porch, so it also could have been an egg or two.

I don't have a problem with snakes, but I prefer them to NOT be a surprise and for them to be "over there" and me to be "over here" and for things to stay that way.

He was a very chill snake. I grabbed a 4' level that I had laying around and started moving him out and he mostly just laid there. At some point, I think the screen door came towards him, and he became a bit more animated and wanted to come inside. At that point, I became more animated and assertive that he really needed to stay outside. Once I got him out on the porch, I played shuffleboard and gave him a good shove so he was then at the bottom of the steps. That's when I closed the door.

It's something for me to think about though, that the door doesn't fit tight at the bottom, and it's possible that he may be able to squeeze under the door. I may have to look into that.

[mattdavis11]

It was a surprise for sure! If it had been a rattler, you, me and the dog would have had a bad evening!

[id10t]

Mom had this one waiting out the back door this morning.... and "a black one" down near the pond at lunch time. Gee mom, could you be a bit more descriptive?

Anyway, this little guy could be pushing 6 feet...

[Bill Douglas]

A snake skin leather belt.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by mattdavis11

It was a surprise for sure! If it had been a rattler, you, me and the dog would have had a bad evening!

Absolutely!

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

A snake skin leather belt.

Right, where was Hugh when you need him.

Except, I hope this guy sticks around and gets old and fat eating mice and rats. I also hope that he lives under the house or in the bushes and NOT in between the screen door and front door.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by masraum

Absolutely!



Right, where was Hugh when you need him.

Except, I hope this guy sticks around and gets old and fat eating mice and rats. I also hope that he lives under the house or in the bushes and NOT in between the screen door and front door.

Well, you obviously have a mouse and/rat problem because here is there, big and healthy.

Do not show this thread to Mrs. Masraum, or you will have to sell the house.

BTW: I still have another tank for you. PM me your address and phone number and I'll swing by the next time I go to Austin or Sealy. Trying to clean out the garage...

[GH85Carrera]

One of the Air Force pilots my dad flew with became a good friend. When he retired from the Air Force his grandmother had just died and he inherited the family farm in the middle of nowhere, Texas. He had always loved the place, and his parents did not want it. So they moved into the old farm house. He noticed a lack of mice in the barn and no cats in sight and figured coyotes had been keeping the population down.

His first morning there he grabbed a cup of coffee and sat on the porch to enjoy the nice morning. Right on the front porch was a rattle snake. So he got his pistol loaded it with rat shot and dispatched the snake.

The second morning he was ready to enjoy some coffee on the porch and lo and behold, another rattle snake. So he killed it.

Third morning thinking no snake today, he went to the porch coffee in hand, and damned if there was yet another rattler. He killed it, and a few hours later went into town to find the local snake and pest control company to come check under the house.

The pros showed up, and the pro stuck his head under the porch and yelled and started cussing. He said there are more rattlers under there than at any snake farm and said it was like a nightmare scene from a movie.

He came back with a lot of help, and they ended up with over 50 rattlers. He said within a few days he was seeing mice droppings. He put out lots of traps, and found some barn cats. He figured cats were a lot better than snakes for mouse control.

[Seahawk]

Someone has to do it:



Growing up in the coastal mountains in California on a small ranch, snakes were a given but it was like shirts or skins in basketball: The good snakes and the bad snakes were easy to identify.

In Maryland? The farm is along a marsh and then bordered by by woods. I am surrounded. The little mnemonic I learned about the coral snake is “red touch yellow, kill a fellow.”

What the **** does that mean!

[dheinz]

First photo is a 4 foot long black snake heading toward my apple tree.
Second photo is the same snake swallowing a juvenile squirrel.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture but check out the expansion of the snake's body...

[Evans, Marv]

Several years ago I was in my garage. I had a rolling rack with plastic bins full of different things. One was filled with casters. I was rummaging through one of the bins on the bottom and heard a scrapping sound in the caster bin. Took the bin out, started taking casters out and saw the tail of a snake. I took the bin outside and started unloadiing the casters, then dumped the casters out that were left. There was a six foot long racer entwined in the casters. It tried to go back into the garage, & I had to block it. Racers are very fast.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by red-beard

Well, you obviously have a mouse and/rat problem because here is there, big and healthy.

Do not show this thread to Mrs. Masraum, or you will have to sell the house.

BTW: I still have another tank for you. PM me your address and phone number and I'll swing by the next time I go to Austin or Sealy. Trying to clean out the garage...

Yep, there are mice and rats around. When we moved in, I did catch 2 mice. I assume they moved in during snowmaggedon. When mowing, some of the very deep grass on the property, I have seen mice and rats.

I'm hoping that we have plenty of raptors and harmless snakes and very few rattley, coppery, cottony danger noodles. The PO of the property said that they'd found the occasional (can't remember if they said copperhead or rattle snake) after they'd run over them with the mower. I don't want to kill snakes, but if I have to run across the poisonous sort, I probably prefer to find them deceased.

PM sent.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

One of the Air Force pilots my dad flew with became a good friend. When he retired from the Air Force his grandmother had just died and he inherited the family farm in the middle of nowhere, Texas. He had always loved the place, and his parents did not want it. So they moved into the old farm house. He noticed a lack of mice in the barn and no cats in sight and figured coyotes had been keeping the population down.

His first morning there he grabbed a cup of coffee and sat on the porch to enjoy the nice morning. Right on the front porch was a rattle snake. So he got his pistol loaded it with rat shot and dispatched the snake.

The second morning he was ready to enjoy some coffee on the porch and lo and behold, another rattle snake. So he killed it.

Third morning thinking no snake today, he went to the porch coffee in hand, and damned if there was yet another rattler. He killed it, and a few hours later went into town to find the local snake and pest control company to come check under the house.

The pros showed up, and the pro stuck his head under the porch and yelled and started cussing. He said there are more rattlers under there than at any snake farm and said it was like a nightmare scene from a movie.

He came back with a lot of help, and they ended up with over 50 rattlers. He said within a few days he was seeing mice droppings. He put out lots of traps, and found some barn cats. He figured cats were a lot better than snakes for mouse control.

I can live with snakes, but I prefer them to not be the venomous sort.

We just had our foundation leveled and the guys didn't find any snakes under the house or if they did, they didn't say anything about it.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

In Maryland? The farm is along a marsh and then bordered by by woods. I am surrounded. The little mnemonic I learned about the coral snake is “red touch yellow, kill a fellow.”

What the **** does that mean!

I'm in a couple of snake ID groups on facebook. That mnemonic is actually not a great way to go about things. It mostly works, but there are plenty of exceptions, apparently. Not only that, but it's super easy for folks to mentally transpose the mnemonic. There's also a lot of misinformation about snakes other than coral snakes, like pupil shape, head shape, etc... THe following link addresses many of the myths, but I'm specifically copy/pasting some of the info about coral snakes.

https://medium.com/natural-world/how-not-to-id-a-venomous-snake-8c7de2d0ca2e

Even though coralsnakes occur in many countries, the rhyme is only meant to apply in the United States.
The rhyme gets misremembered. One of the ways I have heard this is, “Red touches yellow’s a friendly fellow; Red touches black, you’d better get back.” A young woman got envenomated just a few months ago because she asked if a coralsnake was venomous on Facebook and someone said the rhyme wrong. If you are facing a snake that you think could hurt you and you get an adrenaline rush, how easy do you really think it will be to properly recite and decipher a rhyme that you may not have heard in years? In my opinion, you are better off memorizing what your local snakes look like so you don’t have to think about it.
The rhyme assumes that you are looking at a normally-colored snake. While most snakes do have a predictable appearance, aberrancies (oddly-colored individuals) are common enough that we see them regularly on the snake forums.
The rhyme presumes that you know how to interpret what it means more than what it says. For example, on the (normally-colored) Texas Coralsnake above, you can see that the black bleeds past the yellow bands. Consequently, the red is touching yellow and black. The rhyme is referring to the yellow in this instance, but that is not mentioned.
The rhyme presumes that you either live in an area without species that break this rule, or you already know which other snakes to exclude. Here’s a tidbit you might not have known: there are more harmless species (four) in the US alone that have red touching yellow than there are species of coralsnakes in the US (three). Let me say that again, in case it didn’t sink in.

1 HARMLESS Sonoran Shovel-nosed Snake (US & Mexico), Chionactis palarostris, photo by COLEJWOLF
2 VENOMOUS Aquatic Coralsnake, Micrurus surinamensis (South America), photo by Bernard Dupont
3 VENOMOUS Bibron’s Coralsnake, Calliophis bibroni (India), photo by Prasenjeet Yadav
4 VENOMOUS Variable Coralsnake, Micrurus diastema (Mexico), photo by Luis Diaz-Gamboa
5 HARMLESS Long-nosed Snake, Rhinocheilus lecontei (USA), photo by Amy
6 VENOMOUS Texas Coralsnake (melanistic), Micrurus tener (USA), photo by Tyler Sladen

[flipper35]

I would prefer a Kestral or other birds of prey to keep the rodent population down.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by dheinz

First photo is a 4 foot long black snake heading toward my apple tree.
Second photo is the same snake swallowing a juvenile squirrel.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture but check out the expansion of the snake's body...

Wow, that's crazy. Supposedly, the rat snake may go after squirrels. I can't imagine the snake that I saw yesterday getting any squirrel that I've seen around here. He was very small around and our squirrels (surprisingly few considering we have a bunch of pecan trees) are huge.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by flipper35

I would prefer a Kestral or other birds of prey to keep the rodent population down.

Yep, and we do have some birds around here that would do the trick.

[Rick Lee]

I took Rattlesnake training last year. It was very interesting.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I took Rattlesnake training last year. It was very interesting.

Anything particular stand out as interesting, and/or contrary to what most folks would think?

[Rick Lee]

Well, it's pretty hard to get bitten when using a snake stick. The longest Rattler you'll ever see in AZ is 6', and that's a monster and very rare. Their striking distance is 1/3 of their body length. So a max of 2' striking distance. Use a 4' snake stick, my arms are 2' long and, as long as you walk with the snake in front of you, so you can't fall back or sideways onto it, you'll be fine. I corralled this Rattler two or three times and by my second time, he had already been corralled by the other 10 people in the class. So he was plenty mad by my second time. Still, nothing to worry about.

[masraum]

Right, I was looking online today at copperheads, apparently, they are mostly in the 20-30" range with the rare snake hitting almost 40". That's not a lot of snake.