Did that dipstick move?

[Junkman]

Jim....... possibly that snake thought that you were just a "rat" for disturbing him. I used to handle rat snakes and never thought about it until one day when I got bit. It didn't hurt, but it did scare me. One of my employees put a 8' boa into my wifes hands when she wasn't expecting it. I am not sure who was more scared..... the snake when it hit the floor or the wife when she hit the floor running. I have found that the snakes are most aggressive when they are hungry. I also found that they don't like to be handled just after eating. For that reason, I don't like to handle snakes any longer. I used to handle the tarantulas also, but gave that up after almost being stung once. The worse thing that I had ever handled was my 5' South American Cayman. Didn't matter that I had it since it was a hatch-ling, it never learned that I was its source of the food it ate.

 

[arthr31]

hey man, how many snakes are there in TX? I'm sceered.

wrt the snake in your fan well, do what I do: check the oil after shutdown, 'bout 1/2 hr and then check up when restart is lesss necessaryy... see those extrraaa sssnakes.. .geessss, ehty' gettt'in tottheeethsseeemeee... te3xthasss.... snakethessss contrythessss...

honestly, I gots like tons of snake's 'round me, other critters kille'm mostly. I'll post the random "headless" snake we find soon enough.. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[arthr31]

ah ya, just to clear that up: i said that tx = snake contry.
latr dudes.

 

[ronjhall]

I sure am glad that none of them dipstick showed up during my visit. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[RedRocker]

I dated this really hot girl once that had maybe 25 snakes in her apartment. One of my best acting jobs pretending that it didn't FREAK ME OUT!!! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Reading about ya'll antics as kids took me back a week or so. In the seventh grade we lived in a small town in north Arizona called Cottonwood. We only had two paper routes in the area and I had the one downtown, uptown, and midtown. So I had to get up early every day.

Occasionally I'd find a garden snake up and about. I'd take it to school with me. Back then we weren't allowed to wear shirts to school that didn't have a collar. Just before approaching a young lady I'd slide the snake inside my shirt. About the time I'd walk up and put my arm around her the snake's head would come up and out of my collar on her side.

It was fun. I don't know why. But the sight of the snake would inspire them to do lots of silly screaming amongst other things equally ignorant.

In the eighth grade we lived in Tucson. There I didn't take snakes to school. I took the big yellow scorpions. Our house faced east so sometimes in the mornings they'd be on the lawn picking up some heat. I'd remove the stinger and puss sack.

Then I'd put the treasure in a penny matchbox along with a couple of stick matches. When some kid would ask if I had a light I'd toss them the penny match box.

We cleared out the girls rest room more than once with that trick.

And more than one poor teacher got a lesson in the advantages of keeping their desk drawers locked also.

It was fun being a kid. I'm just glad they don't make kids like us anymore. I'd have to kill them.

 

[jinman]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I used to handle rat snakes and never thought about it until one day when I got bit. It didn't hurt, but it did scare me. )</font>

Junkman, the trans-pecos ratsnake and the great plains ratsnake will only nip at you occasionally according to my field guide to snakes. It says that the Texas rat snake is different and will readily nip at you and is the most aggressive non-venemous snake in the state. I've chased and killed lots of copperheads, but they always seem to run. I don't think I've ever run into a snake as agressive as this one. I'm pretty darn sure it was looking for food, too. The Texas rat snake doesn't eat bugs. It robs nests and also eats small warm-blooded animals.

Actually, I first saw this snake under my tractor, but as I approached, it went up into the tractor and hid. I just didn't want to leave it up in there and forcefully evicted it. The "business" about a moving dipstick was just me searching for a catchy angle on my story. I knew the snake was under the hood when I opened it up. What I didn't expect was how hard it would be to get it out and then to have to fight it off for 20 minutes. After this, you can bet I'll check under the hood for awhile each time before I use my tractor. In the summer it's a good idea to do that to look for wasp nests anyway. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Junkman]

The ones that we used to sell were the red or yellow rat (corn) snakes, pythons, and boa's. The coolest of them all were the sand boa's. They would slither under the sand at the bottom of the aquariums and when you put a mouse in for feed, they would jump out of the sand and grab the mouse. The disadvantage of that particular snake is that it would also go after anything else that if felt disturb the sand, like your hand. Always used a stick to get them out first before handling them. The worse were the pythons when they would wrap themselves around something if they got loose. They don't "unwrap" very easily unless they want to. A local resident had one that was about 15 feet. He was cleaning the cage and the snake attacked him. His wife had to call the police and they shot the snake to keep it from killing him. This was just one of the many reasons that we never sold any large snakes. 3' - 4' was the limit.

 

[getut]

That is hilarious. I would have loved to have seen the snake doing that.

Around these parts, believe it or not the most aggressive snake is the garter. Those things think they are king cobras. Pick one up and they latch on to a finger and shake and do death rolls like a 1 ton alligator.

I caught a black snake one time while waiting before a softball game. I put him in my bat bag and then just waited for team members to show up. One by one I would put my glove on and ask them to get a ball out of my bat bag and warm up with me. It took about 5 players or so before anyone ever even noticed him in there, and it just so happened that the one that finally did notice was ALREADY the fastest guy on the team. He ran so fast he was blurry, but never moved. He was so shaken up he just kinda ran in place yelling.