Snaaaake!

[thumper]

I'm not particularly found of snakes, I respect them enough to avoid them. Several years ago we moved out to the country, not that we didn't see a snake every now and again back in town but they are a bit more evident out here. I don't know why perhaps the weather, there has been quite a bit of snake activity here over the past few weeks. We mostly have black snakes and water mocassins. I don't mind the black snakes so much, we just chase them from the house. It's the pesky mocassins which insist on occupying my porch. I'm now in the habit of scanning the porch before exiting the house. We usually see them at night on the back porch perhaps it's for warmth or the tree frogs. I'm not sure but since they are an aggressive poisonous snake we kill them. The black snake may be the same one but I've seen him on a few occassions, but we've killed 4 moccasssins in as many weeks. Not to mention the ones we don't see.

Another scary creature for us here in Florida is the scorpion which I seem to be attracting. I've found several in the house over the past few weeks. I'm sure they are finding a small crack to get in. But I'm not found of them either espcially since my youngest is 11. We keep things picked up and the yard is mowed regularly. Not real sure why they are so happy here. I heard that sulfur would help with the snakes so I'll have to see what I can find when I head out later. Not sure how to keep the scorpions yet.

 

[texasjohn]

tallyho8, am not an expert... but my instant reaction is that it is a hognose snake..

This site has LOTS (50 or so) of photos of hognoses.

 

[wushaw]

While I was reading this thread, my Blueticks started barking and I went to see what they were barking at. This is what I found. I am afraid they injured him so I just removed him from the kennel and set him aside and got a photo. Do you know what kind he is?

He is a rat snake known as a Texas Rat Snake. Texas Rat Snake

 

[tallyho8]

He is a rat snake known as a Texas Rat Snake. Texas Rat Snake

Yes, he looked just like that photo. I don't know why my dog attacked him. Not a usual thing for a coondog to do.

 

[Etch]

We have Texas Rat Snakes on our property. I killed one mistakenly thinking it was a rattle snake. The circumstances did not favor the snake. First of all, it was dark and I was about to take my dog for a walk. I opened the front door and saw the snake on my porch. I yanked back the dog's leash fearing it was a rattle snake. After I locked the dog back in the house, I came out to investigate. It looked similar to a rattle snake and as it was making it's exit, I tried to see if it had a rattle. I kicked it's tail as it was slithering off and it rattled, but it didn't actually rattle. It shook its tail like a rattle snake the the tale was hitting the concrete. I thought for sure it was a rattle snake at this point, so I got my pellet rifle. The snake was trying to make it's escape, but when I shined a flash light on it, it reared up into a striking pose. I put a couple pellets in it's head and it was dead.

As I drug it out to the light, I realized it was not a rattle snake. The head was not diamond shaped and it did not have a rattle or any markings on the tale. I looked it up on the Internet and found it was a Texas Rat Snake and they do rattle their tale like a rattle snake when they are disturbed. Too bad that little rattle snake mimic cost it its life.

I have found a few more rat snakes and let them live. The only snake I will kill are rattle snakes for my family and animals' safety. We've only seen one baby rattle snake since I've been there, but our horse was bit on the nose by rattle snake a couple years ago. It took awhile for the horse to fully recover as it could barely eat. Baby rattle snakes are worse than adults as they do not know how to control the amount of venom when they strike. They inject their full stock.