Snakes are out "must be Spring"

[Chris99320]

Harv,

Keep reminding your kids about watching for snakes. I remind mine often, but I still don't think they get it. The baby rattler I found at my place was curled up in a stack of lattice I was moving. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif
Look at the following web site for a little more info.
http:// [url]http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/995_snakes.html [/url]


Chris
Washington, the Evergreen State, except where I live!

 

[ronjhall]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

Chris
All the rattlesnakes in this area are mostly put to bed for the winter. South East Michigan only has one poisonous snake. The Mississauga Rattle Snake that lives near swampy areas. It looks a lot like a Common Water Snake. A nasty snake that would just as soon attack and bite you as go away. They are not poisonous but swallow almost any small diseased animal that can cause bad infections. I haven't seen either of these snakes in a couple of years. Most of the swampy areas have been turned into front yard ponds. We still have garter and other common snakes for this area.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Did I ever tell you guys about the snake that dropped out of a tree and landed on the bush hog while I was mowing? He immediately started trying to slither up to the operator's seat. I almost had a runaway but he was a green snake (tree snake?) so I didn't think he was poisonous. I knew I could not get stopped in time so I just let him keep coming. Thankfully he bailed off somewhere before he got to me, maybe thrown off by the pto. Man was I scared. Watching him coming for me was almost more than I could take!

 

[Bird]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

Yep, Harv, I think it's best to stay a little paranoid about the snakes. I've warned my grandkids the same way you're warned your kids. I actually don't know and recognize the different varieties of snakes now as well as I did when I was kid. There were a number of varieties that I used to catch and handle when I was a kid, but I haven't done that since the time when I was about 20 years old and walked up behind a co-worker with one in my hand. Even though I didn't get within 10 feet of him, he tried to climb the walls, screaming, then claimed to have a little heart attack, went home, and didn't come back to work for 3 days./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

When I was 11 years old, my mother went down in the cellar after something one day and came running back out, screaming for me at the top of her lungs, so I got my .22 and a flashlight and went down there to get the snake (didn't know whether it was going to be a poisonous one or not). Mother always loved to tell the story about that because a friend asked her why in world she would send a kid down in that cellar with a snake and she said, "Because he wasn't afraid of them, and I was!"

Bird

 

[GlueGuy]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

I wouldn't call it problems.

We have lots of rattlesnakes on the ridge. In fact, we've contemplated calling it "Rattlesnake Ridge", thinking it might keep out the riff-raff.

Just the same; even though we see them pretty regularly, they don't cause any harm as long as you keep your distance.

If one gets too close to the house, we will just re-locate it to somewhere "nicer" for the critter. We have a little hoop-thingy (how's that for a technical term? /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif). You just loop it around their head, pull on the rope, and they're snagged. You can then just drop them in a burlap sack, or carry them with the snare.

No need to kill them, they eat the mice & gophers. That is a much-needed service.

The GlueGuy

 

[Bird]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

<font color=blue>contemplated calling it "Rattlesnake Ridge", thinking it might keep out the riff-raff.</font color=blue>

GlueGuy, I suspect that's just what happened in my neighborhood. After doing some checking, I found that the creek below my house is "officially" named "Harris Branch", but after asking around, I've not found anyone in the area who knows where Harris Branch is, but everyone knows where Snake Creek is and that's all I've heard it called./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Bird

 

[glennmac]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

There is only one state that has no native poisoness snakes. Anyone know?

 

[DocHeb]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

The lush green isles of Hawaii, I believe.

 

[Bird]

Re: Snakes are out \"must be Spring\"

Glennmac, I could be wrong, but it was my understanding there are two states with no snakes. Now of course I've heard they were wiped out long, long ago in one state, so I suppose it's the other one that has no "native" poisonous snakes./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Bird

 

[GlennT]

About three weeks ago I went out to my chicken coop, swung open the hinged panel at one end of the coop, stuck my head into a nest as usual to check for eggs, AND FOUND MYSELF EYEBALL TO EYEBALL WITH A BIG SNAKE. As I told my wife, I set a new world's record for the broad jump from a standing start by males 65 years and older. I went and got my gun and shot that sucker right there in the nest. After we got the snake book and looked him up, he turned out to be a nonvenomous Texas rat snake. He was approximately 6 feet long and 3 1/2 inches wide in the middle. For the two days in a row he had enjoyed our eggs. According to the snake book, Texas rat snakes are aggressive but don't have fangs long enough to do much more than scratch the victim. Anyway, you can bet your bottom dollar that I don't stick my head in a nest anymore without looking first!! According to a friend who has lived in Texas for a long time, the snake was big enough to have gone after one of the chickens.