Coral snake chased my friend on my property!

[davo727]

Thursday my friend jeff was working on at my place- 8.5 acres between Cleveland and Coldspring Tx. I was out of town and he told me what happened when I got back.

He had trimmed some trees over my driveway gate and then walked back into the property to continue some clearing we had started when he saw the red and yellow and black snake about 20 feet in front of him headed his way and he looked at it and figured it would stop and go back when it really saw him.

Well jeff said he was watching it continue straight for him and when the 3 foot long coral snake was about 12 feet away jeff said the heck with this and turned and ran towards his truck to get a shovel to take care of it.

Came back a minute later and couldnt find it anywhere so Jeff packed up his stuff and went home! There went my free labor! Darnit. He is knowledgeable and if he says it was a coral snake then it was.

Now I have to worry about this when I go up there to work on the place :confused2:

And I do a web search and find out that the pharma companys quit making coral snake anti-venom. Great.

 

[Sigarms]

If you think you've seen one, just remember a traffic light.

If you see yellow then red in the color pattern, STOP.

 

[texasjohn]

Coral snake or king snake. Can be same colors, different sequence.

Here is the king snake identification information.

King snakes eat rattlesnakes. Their bands of red and black are adjacent.

Coral snakes, while venomous, do not have long fangs but must chew on a body part to inject venom. Small children are most vulnerable, sometimes picking up one and playing with it for a while before it starts chewing on a little finger.

Highest probability is that it was a king snake.

Too bad you lost your friendly free labor....I doubt that the snake even saw him.... given a chance, snakes will seek to avoid confrontation with a large animal/person because they know they are not prey. It's possible that snake was heading toward burrow to get away since it vanished.

 

[ToadHill]

Maybe you need to keep it as a trained guard snake.

 

[Storm56]

Three feet would be a pretty large coral snake. I agree with the previous posters that it was perhaps a king snake. They are quite easy to confuse.

 

[forgeblast]

give it to the guy who has rattlesnakes under his shipping container.

 

[jlsmith]

I agree with texasjohn, prob a king snake. just remember "red touch black friend of jack. red touch yellow will kill a fellow". good luck with snake thow.:laughing:

 

[beenthere]

"chased" might be a bit misleading here.

"ran away from snake" might be more accurate.

This guy didn't stick around to identify which color was where. But a good story.

 

[LMTC]

Spent a lot of time many years ago with snakes, but never dealt with a coral. By all information I had they are shy and retiring...basically pretty non-aggressive. King snakes on the other hand can be extremely aggressive. Both will have red, yellow, black bands, but in different sequences. The rhyme I was taught was "red and yellow kill a fellow, red and black venom lack."

 

[sweettractors]

"chased" might be a bit misleading here.

"ran away from snake" might be more accurate.

This guy didn't stick around to identify which color was where. But a good story.

Snakes can chase. I had a Blue Racer chase me to the top of a fence post when I was 12 or 13. We were morel mushroom hunting. Ken Sweet

 

[txdon]

I have run across several coral snakes here. Their senses don't seem to be the brightest. I think, like others here, that the snake happened to be moving in the same direction as you free labor. Maybe if the laborer was paid the snake would have been going in a slightly different direction.

 

[beenthere]

Ken
I was translating the OP story told here. Blue racers are a bit different, I understand.
I'd run too, but not leave, to see if I was really being chased.

 

[sweettractors]

Ken
I was translating the OP story told here. Blue racers are a bit different, I understand.
I'd run too, but not leave, to see if I was really being chased.

Funny, Every time I stopped, it stopped. When I ran, it ran. My Aunt and myself found a roosting place on top of the fence posts. Real funny looking back LOL Ken Sweet

 

[jinman]

I have run across several coral snakes here. Their senses don't seem to be the brightest. I think, like others here, that the snake happened to be moving in the same direction as you free labor. Maybe if the laborer was paid the snake would have been going in a slightly different direction.

I never feared a coral snake because their mouth is so small they can't bite like a rattler, copperhead, or moccasin. They can get you on the end of a finger or in the web between your fingers or thumb, but they can't strike and bite on the leg or arm. Leather gloves are probably sufficient protection. Their bites are rare, and besides, they can't keep up with a person running away at full speed.

 

[schmism]

isnt there a saying

red then yellow kill a fellow

red then black safe as jack

 

[Jriffe108]

I figured I'd add a few visual identifiers. I had an outbreak of snakes last summer due to the extreme hear and severe drought here in south Texas. Never seen so many snakes in a short amount of time. The first two are coral, followed by rattlesnakes.

The fifth pic is an interesting find. The culvert pipe was located in Halletsville Texas from an airport construction project.

Of course, the last pic is the obligatory tractor pic.

 

[rjkobbeman]

Don't forget that all of these nursery rhymes only apply to North American Corals/Milk snakes.

Outside of North America the color banding can be/is different.

I know we are talking about North America here, but this is a "global" site.

 

[SPIKER]

Ken:

That is pretty good. the biggest WILD snake I have ever seen was a Blue Racer when I was maybe 10 (frequently caught any & every critter going.) Dammed if I could not catch it though. Saw it 3 or 4 times in a week & kept trying to get a hold of that thing though it was too fast through the under brush. Ya there was a perfectly good reason (My sister freaked every time she saw ANY snake ) Sure miss picking on her she has been gone 10 yrs now Anyhow that snake was a good 3 feet longer than I was tall if not more. though it might have only been 1.5" around lived on the Rail Rad tracks back about 1/2 mile from my sisters place.

Mark m

 

[davo727]

I talked to Jeff again and he said that coral snake raised its head up and looked right at him and hes sure it saw him.

 

[jinman]

I talked to Jeff again and he said that coral snake raised its head up and looked right at him and hes sure it saw him.

Now that's a great inspiration for a C&W song that includes drinking, gettin' lost, and passin' out in a field.:laughing: :thumbsup: