RE: Subject
Guess there is at least one advantage to living in a place where you have snow and cold weather for at least a couple of months each year.
In all the years I lived in Northern Ohio, never saw a poisonous snake of any kind.
My dad told me there might be some copperheads around, but not cotton mouths, it simply got to cold in the winter.
Lew
Dragged a couple of old memories out of the dusty depths. When I was a youngster in about grade 6 or 7 at primary school, we owned a dairy farm. During hay cutting and bailing season it was not uncommon (read very common)to knock the head of a snake while cutting or have a couple bailed in the hay. These where Dugites, very deadly and have been known to grow to about the 6' mark. Anyhow, Dad clipped one with the hay cutter, reckon it was about 10' long (well seemed it to young bloke) probably around the 3-4' mark. He suggested that I take it school to show the other kids,mostly townies) and the teacher. Monday morning came and I dutifully caught the bus for the 10 mile ride into school with my prize, in a sugar bag.
While showing my school mates, somehow "Show the Teacher" became "lets put it in her desk drawer" The snake was carefully coiled in the top drawer with a piece of paper covering the end where the head should have been.
Well needless to say, the teacher (First time in the bush from the city) opened the drawer and all hell broke loose.
My mate and I got six of the best on the arse from the head master along with having to write out a thousand lines at home. Can't remember what they were now.
When I got home the old man gave me clip under the ear as well,between fits of laughter, though I think that was more for getting caught than doing what we did.
All the best John
One has to wonder why anyone would come to a woodworking newsgroup for advice on dealing with potentially poisonous snakes...
I prefer
"Red on yellow, kill the bastard, red on black, kill the bastard"
when biting. Medical
to humans by poisonous
be voluntarily
situations. However, these
One of those things thats useful to know afterwards. Beforehand, I can just see some know-it-all saying "Don't worry, 60% of bites have no venom", just before he joins the other
40%.
As in the human world not all snakes act the way they are supposed to.
Might have something to do with the mower. Of all the copperheads I've dealt with would just lay as still as possible until you were within striking distance. Makes then the hardest to find but the easiest to catch.
No venomous snake remains near the house or barn but neither are they killed just because. They are caught and relocated. Lots of room around here for everyone.
I used to keep rats as pets as well as grew up on a farm where trapping (poisoning, shooting, etc.) rats was one of the jobs. I can tell you that your "medium" feeder rat is just about as big as a wild rat will get. Taking a wild rat that was as big as even my adult female whites was unusual.
Given two snakes of the same size the venomous one will get more of the larger meals because he will have fewer get away. Therefore when you have fewer venomous snakes around more rats will get away. Also the snakes seem to know this and don't try for rats but go for the smaller but more sure meal of mice.
You've never been to NYC, then, have you? 8-)
Sounds like folklore to me. It is very, very rare that a prey animal would escape the strike of either a venomous or non-venomous snake. And in the case of the non-venomous snake, escape after that is even more rare. Snakes are extremely efficient predators.
If it has that look and you can't remember, best err on the side of safety, but king snakes eat rattlesnakes (among other things), so they're nice to have around.
Personally, I'd be VERY happy with that trade off... Got a house full of cats to handle mice and rats but would rather they don't mess with rattlers..
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
I guess that's a subjective thing... In 60 years of fumbling around, I've NEVER met a snake that I considered nice to have around..
I'm only afraid of 3 kinds of snakes:
little ones, big ones and live ones
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
We had an interesting snake event here a few months ago:
A friend of our neighbor has been living in their RV while building a house.. The house is finished and they're moving stuff from the trailer to the house and from the carport to the house.. He picks up a dresser in the carport and it buzzes at him... oh,oh..
Sets it down and investigates from a distance and finds that the top drawer is empty except for a very upset rattlesnake... He calls my neighbor, who asks him "why did you call me?" The guy says that because my neighbor used to farm, he must have experience with snakes, right? Neighbor says that he has that experience and doesn't desire any more, especially dealing with snakes in furniture.. tells him to call security.. (We live in what you could loosely call a gated community and it's patrolled by private patrol) He and I both asked "what can security do?" and he said "More than I will".. lol To everyone's surprise, security showed up 20 min later with an "ecology" team, who captured the snake and took it with them, presumably to release in the desert...
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
As in most newsgroups, you can judge a topic from the number of responses... Folks will talk about things that interest them and ignore the things that don't...
If this was a tight-ass monitored group, there would be no replies..
Isn't self censorship wonderful?
mac
Please remove splinters before emailing
I'd kill all the (f)'king snakes too. If I have a rat problem, I'll get a cat.
I've just come back from visit>> I prefer
Cats have fun with non-venomous snakes, although they tend to use them as toys instead of killing them. Don't know how they do against European venomous snakes, but the pit vipers (rattlesnake, copperhead, and cottonmouth) supposedly can make short work of a mongoose (the pit vipers strike from a horizontal S-curve, the cobras and their kin strike from a vertical stance that makes them less agile), although I can't find a credible report of such an encounter ever having actually occurred.
Tue, Aug 21, 2007, 7:35am (EDT-3) snipped-for-privacy@msn.com (tom) doth sayeth: I don't know where you read "like a bumble bee sting", but do a little more research, and I think you'll find this to be true:
I don't know where I read it either, and I'm probably not going to bother to try to find it, as it was years ago.
I would say partially true. Do you mean the National Geographic shows on TV alligator attacks on people in Florida, sometimes killing them, are untrue?
I'll go along with the guy who relocates poisonous snakes. I stay where I am, they get relocated to snake heaven.
JOAT I do things I don't know how to do, so that I might learn how to do them.
- Picasso
Tue, Aug 21, 2007, 10:35am (EDT-3) snipped-for-privacy@bajadavis.com (mac=A0davis) doth sayeth: I guess that's a subjective thing... In 60 years of fumbling around, I've NEVER met a snake that I considered nice to have around.. I'm only afraid of 3 kinds of snakes: little ones, big ones and live ones
I'm not "afraid" of snakes, but if you ever want to move, you can be my neighbor anytime.
JOAT I do things I don't know how to do, so that I might learn how to do them.
- Picasso
Tue, Aug 21, 2007, 3:11pm snipped-for-privacy@cox.net (J.=A0Clarke) doth sayeth: On the other hand, California ground squirrels apparently can fight rattlesnakes succesfully
Remember watching either Animal Planet or National Geographic on TV, quite awhile back. They were doing a show on some rather mean little animal, somewhere in Africa. Damned if I can recall what it was. Anyway a mainsay in it's diet is very poisonous snakes. Someting like a very mean mongoose with a constant hangover. Anyway, the little bugger proceeds to kill a snake that has enough venom to probably kill an elephant, getting zapped in the face first. The snake dies, the wee little beasty drops. Then after about 8 hours, the little beast gets up, dines, and moves on. Makes one very thankful they're about the size of a housecat and not a lion say. Hmm, honey badger is the name that comes to mind, but I'm not sure that's it.
JOAT I do things I don't know how to do, so that I might learn how to do them.
- Picasso
Well, that certainly puts you into the majority :-).
I find them really interesting. Who woulda' thunk that a land animal without legs could be so successful over the eons.
But my wife has the same opinion as you, so I haven't had any since I got married (38 years ago).
The man from Wikipedia, he say yes.
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