Rural Southern Guys And Snakes.

[atsah]

Aside to an occasional copperhead,non-venomous snakes are much more aggressive by comparison. The only thing that give's rise to more old wives tales and tall tales in general than coyotes is snakes. The best thing you can do when living with venomous snakes is educate yourself. First priority is lean to identify each venomous snake in your area. Don't even try learning each species of non-venomous,it's a waste of time and require's 100 fold the experience and education required to identify the one's that are venomous. Not trying to discredit you,more so to get your education started. You said you saw a coral on a recent visit. Tell me how you knew for certain that's what is was. It's the easiest of all to identify but 90% of sightings are mistaken identity. We can come back and spend time on identifying all of them if you want to but for now we go to the second best thing for staying safe. Most any naturally aggressive breed of dog can be trained to find and bay snakes. Here's where the decision can get problematic. Eventhough many lap dogs can be trained as great snake finders,I highly recommend starting the relationship from day one looking to the dog as a tool and having it live outdoors when weather allows. Small to medium size terriers excel unless they need to defend against 4 legged intruders. I'd 2 to 1 rather have a small and alert dog that sound's the alarm then let's me handle it than a pit that chew's my long lost friend's leg off before I can stop it. Do those two things plus common sense like mowing and keeping trash to minimun and the odds are stacked overwhelmingly in you favor. I'll be happy to spend all the time you like on this if you ask.

Red next to yellow..

 

[atsah]

I know snakes pretty well, they fascinate me. What I was looking at was a coral snake trust me.

 

[jaxs]

Red next to yellow..

You nailed it.

 

[jaxs]

I know snakes pretty well, they fascinate me.

In that case,I'm preaching to the converted. Your questions didn't project as one that familiar.

 

[bullbreaker]

Water moccasin, otherwise known as Cotton mouths. I was bleeding brakes on a 1 ton truck and one came from the front of the truck coming right at me! I came out from under that truck QUICKLY! Dang thing stayed there on the warm concrete till I took his head off with a carefully placed .22!
David from jax

Those things are real curious . Seen em do that many a time ! Yes come to the commotion . Also seen em many a time travel in pairs , propel them selves mateing I guess, huge ones traveling down canals, and even had a huge one once stand up like a cobra and back me off . I was unarmed . Also have found them seeking warmth of engines cut off and holding tolerable heat . We dont have copper heads down here but I hear they are nasty .

 

[Beltzington]

When we first move to our place 17 years ago, the people we bought from had piles of "stuff" and were inconsistent about keeping the place mowed. They were having regular encounters with rattlesnakes. After cleaning up, keeping the place mowed and eliminating the habitat we rarely encounter one now. Rattlesnakes are generally pretty shy. If you keep a lot of activity (i.e. regular mowing) they will move on.

Coral Snakes are aggressive and mean.

I have no personal experience with corral snakes but everything I have heard and read has never classified them as aggressive. Was this a typo or would you elaborate on why you feel this way?

Thanks

 

[TractorGuy]

The mowing will probably help. I keep a 20+ foot perimeter mowed around my place and haven't seen a snake in years. Never had a lot of them though. We have always had a cat that keeps the meeces under control so I guess there isn't a lot of food for snakes here.

 

[rbtjr]

We had lots of copperheads on our property until eastern king snakes showed up. That was the end of the copperheads. I haven't seen a copperhead in years now. I had heard and read that king snakes kill poisonous snakes by constricting them and then the king snakes eat the poisonous snakes. Because of the copperheads, I had actually tried to buy some king snakes from many pet shops. About a week after I gave up on buying king snakes they started showing up on our property. One of our sons has twice now seen king snakes killing and eating copperheads. I see on the Internet that king snakes also kill rattlesnakes. If that is accurate, based on my experience you can't buy king snakes but they would be a welcome addition to your defenses against rattlesnakes. Don't know about the corals.

 

[Stancoll]

I will be moving to central Florida soon near family, the area has many snakes. Lots of fields and pastures. The property bordering my property has cattle and lots of wild rabbits and Rattle snakes. My sister has horses, cows and dogs that have been bitten my snakes, some have died and some didn't.

I visited a few weeks ago and within three days I saw a coral and three big rattlers. I have a fenced yard for the dog as does my sister but that hasn't deterred snakes from entering the yard and biting her dogs.

What are some things that I can do to limit snakes from entering close to the house besides keeping the yard mowed and getting rid of things for them to go under like boards etc, my house is surrounded by open fields with horses and cattle in them.

Goats or hogs. Goats will stomp them to death. Hogs will eat them.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

The mowing will probably help. I keep a 20+ foot perimeter mowed around my place and haven't seen a snake in years. Never had a lot of them though. We have always had a cat that keeps the meeces under control so I guess there isn't a lot of food for snakes here.

Mowing helps a lot...at least it did for me. When we moved into this house, the addition was new...we're next to a creek, and it was not uncommon for us (neighbors included) to see the occasional copperhead in or around the yards. Our little Boston Terrier tangled with a copperhead down next to the creek and came out second best. Once we got the yard going, and the brush trimmed back, we rarely see a snake of any kind any more. In fact, I haven't seen a copperhead since our first year or two and we've been here over 40 years.