Snake Experts

I knew garter snakes had rear venomous fangs. Riverrat isn’t the only responder here that wanted to be a herpetologist when he was a kid. I agree that anyone can have an allergic reaction, but being that they’re way in the back of the mouth it would be unlikely to get them into your skin during a defensive bite. If it tried to eat you starting with your pinky toe, well then you’re probably already dead if you just lay there and take it.

Anyone else on here been bitten by a python? I have. Garter snake. Yep. Fox snake. Yep. Painted turtle. Yep. Softshell turtle. Yep. I probably made the right choice by not being a herpetologist. I caught about every amphibian and reptile I could when I was a kid and I can still smell that musk a garter snake craps out when you catch one. We used to sell them to the pet store in the 70’s for candy money. Been a long time since I kept anything but I’ll still pick them up and look them over for old time’s sake. Coolest snakes I’ve found as an adult were the smooth green snake, red-bellied snake, and eastern hog-nosed. I think the last things I brought home were two tiger salamanders from a squirrel hunting trip and kept them in a terrarium for about six months. I had those guys and two red eared sliders when I met my wife. Turned them all loose by a wooded pond before we moved up to WI in 2002.

“Grumpy Old Man” syndrome.

“Do nothing and live with them for multiple beneficial reasons” is ideological preaching? The OP clearly stated that he kills 3-4 per week. Several gave reasons to not do that. I’m just responding to the OP with unemotional facts. Kill them, box ’em up and ship them to a tree hugger, find a good recipe and eat them. I don’t really care what someone else does to make their yard livable for their family. He asked for advice. Mine is to not harm them but find where they’re concentrated and eliminate that space. It’s got to be rodents (food), brush, bushes, wood, scrap, compost pile or some other cover that’s holding so many of them. Remove that and they’ll move on.

Now that I think of it……….I live out in the country at ground zero for ticks, especially deer-ticks. We’ve raised free range chickens for about 5 years. I now rarely encounter a tick of any kind while out on the lawn(3 acres worth). I hadn’t made the connection with the birds and the lack of snakes I now see. I used to see several per week. Now I’m lucky to see a couple every summer.
Along with ticks, those birds must be doing a vacuuming job on all the other tiny critters and thus discourage snakes? I miss ’em, but my wife doesn’t. Anybody willing to relocate their snakes my way? (We’ve still got mice and vole issues to take care of. )

Agreed on the defensive bite likelihood being low, but little kids and hard grips and… sometimes, you just never know what’s going to happen so, it’s right back to “take it for what it’s worth.”

I have been bitten by a python. Twice! Once was during a rescue and it had gotten into the back of a chair and I was not being granted permission to cut the fabric. Basically, it got a hold of me and I pulled it out of the chair. The other was a freak set of circumstances where time was not available to simply wait, but I had one defecate just after feeding, and I was feeding multiples. I had to get it out of the enclosure for cleaning and anyone that knows, knows that feeding time is no time to handle a snake. I scrubbed and scrubbed to make sure all the rodent associated to my hands was gone, but I still took a defensive nip where it just turned and struck when I thought I was clear to move the free arm into the cage and wipe out the nasty! I wised up and put it in another enclosure before continuing.

I think my favorite through my experience was a Mexican Black King that I had. So little, so much attitude, and the only true black snake in the world. Behind that though, I loved my western hognose. He was just a lot of fun, huffing and puffing and playing all tough for 30 seconds or so, and then it’d realize that it wasn’t being threatened and it would just hang out. You could pocket it, pet it, touch it/move it freely, and it didn’t care at all. Very docile! He was the last of my collection to go, which was done because I had become a father and realized that I was giving the snakes no attention at all.

fishthumper wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>grubson wrote:</div>
Don’t kill anything you don’t intend on eating or utilizing in some way. Its called conservation and we should all be doing our part.

Just curious if you feel the same way about Mosquitos’s, Deer Fly’s, and spiders as well, How about mice in the home?

If they’re biting me, yes I’ll obviously give them a slap. Do i go out of my way to kill every one that dares enter my property? No.
If mice are in the house they’re likely doing serious damage and bringing in potential disease and illness so they need to go.
I guess I should have said don’t kill anything that you’re not going to eat, utilize, or that isn’t hurting anything. I figured that was obvious but I guess not for everyone……

Turns out the eastern hognose is also a rear fanged mildly venomous snake. My wife screamed while picking up branches before mowing one day. When she said snake I obviously had to stop what I was doing and come take a look. It was a bitty little 8″ long thing, hissing and flattened out. I’d only seen them in books and wasn’t sure what it was until it did the open mouth, tongue hanging out roll over trick. On the profile I could see the upturned nose. Totally made my day. Hers, not so much. It pretended it was dead and I moved it over by a blowdown inside the tree line.

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Brian Klawitter wrote:

“Grumpy Old Man” syndrome.

Yep, I’m well on my way! All I need is a Green Hornet! lol

On the voles/moles, I’ve done well with Gopher Hawk traps. The key is to learn how to identify their “expressways” first. Then, make sure you’re getting deep enough for the trigger. Using poisons in the fall seems to make for a slow spring, but adding the traps is getting me through the entire summer with minimal presence. I used to get up to 3 new runs a week! It was bad here!
As for the mice, bucket traps are, in my opinion, the cat’s meow. You can fill the bucket with water and pour out the drowned refuse for other critters to consume or use a poison that dries from the inside out (reduces stink) and bag up the refuse, toss into the trash. I have tried many, many designs and these bucket lid traps have been gold for me! I haven’t had anything else get into them either so I feel confident that they don’t cause other incidentals.

picklerick wrote:

I knew garter snakes had rear venomous fangs. Riverrat isn’t the only responder here that wanted to be a herpetologist when he was a kid. I agree that anyone can have an allergic reaction, but being that they’re way in the back of the mouth it would be unlikely to get them into your skin during a defensive bite. If it tried to eat you starting with your pinky toe, well then you’re probably already dead if you just lay there and take it.

Anyone else on here been bitten by a python? I have. Garter snake. Yep. Fox snake. Yep. Painted turtle. Yep. Softshell turtle. Yep. I probably made the right choice by not being a herpetologist. I caught about every amphibian and reptile I could when I was a kid and I can still smell that musk a garter snake craps out when you catch one. We used to sell them to the pet store in the 70’s for candy money. Been a long time since I kept anything but I’ll still pick them up and look them over for old time’s sake. Coolest snakes I’ve found as an adult were the smooth green snake, red-bellied snake, and eastern hog-nosed. I think the last things I brought home were two tiger salamanders from a squirrel hunting trip and kept them in a terrarium for about six months. I had those guys and two red eared sliders when I met my wife. Turned them all loose by a wooded pond before we moved up to WI in 2002.

Well not quite.
My X had reptiles including a Ball python. She was gone on a weekend trip and I had to take care of the critters.
My job was to clean the feces out of the snake holding if it let one loose.
Well dumb A$$ me, I fed the Eagle Owl a couple mice first and not thinking that I should wash my hands prior to sticking my hands in with the python – He lunged at my hand, luckily he missed. Scared the heck outta me.

picklerick wrote:

Turns out the eastern hognose is also a rear fanged mildly venomous snake. My wife screamed while picking up branches before mowing one day. When she said snake I obviously had to stop what I was doing and come take a look. It was a bitty little 8″ long thing, hissing and flattened out. I’d only seen them in books and wasn’t sure what it was until it did the open mouth, tongue hanging out roll over trick. On the profile I could see the upturned nose. Totally made my day. Hers, not so much. It pretended it was dead and I moved it over by a blowdown inside the tree line.

My dad was with me on my first eastern hognose encounter and it did the cobra imitation, which totally freaked him out! lol I already knew what it was so I told him to “just watch, this is amazing!” All it took was a couple of light bumps and it was upside down, “dead.” Then I explained what we were dealing with. We stayed with it until it started to “revive” and the second it was on its belly, I touched the tail and it “died” again. The thing was sunning itself on a gravel road in early October so I moved it to the ditch before we left.

Mine was also a ball python, about a five footer. My older brother had it in our bedroom. I used to hang out and read books on my bed while he was at work and it would lay on my stomach. I had done so a hundred times before but it was shedding and it’s eyes were milky so it couldn’t really see. I knew better but it never bit before. I put it on the bed, tried to put my hand down on the bed to climb on and wham right on the back of my hand. I guess it was hungry and I never saw it coming. Wide open mouth and must have gotten me with at least half of the 150 teeth they have. Perfect outline of it’s mouth in bleeding needle holes. He had that snake for somewhere around 15yrs. He dated a girl for a couple years that was terrified of snakes and never knew he had it because he put the tank in a closet in his spare bedroom. He ended up giving it to a pet store right before she moved in with him.

Crazy that play dead thing actually works being that most things that would eat another critter kill it first. I guess it emits a stench from its open mouth but for some reason I didn’t put it up to my nose to see if that’s true.

picklerick wrote:

Mine was also a ball python,…

That strikes me as odd because the defensive mechanism in a ball python is not to bite, but to turn into a ball. Wow… I never feared the ball pythons because of this “fact.” Both of my bites came from Burmese pythons. All I can say is, thank God they weren’t fully grown yet! The chair incident was just 6′ and the feeding time scenario was a young albino female, only 4.5′ long, which explains why I was willing to try handling it while cleaning the cage.

Ever heard of an Everglades Rat Snake? The most hate filled, won’t-stop-biting-until-its-heart-explodes critter I’ve ever been exposed to. I’d wear ski gloves every time I got around that spawn of Satan! I did try working with it and it just kept going the other way. The lady that had it eventually gave up, which says a lot because she “tamed” a monitor lizard! Understand… monitors really don’t tame!!! lol I really did like being around that monitor though! It was like a scary, intimidating dog, that just wanted to sit on your lap, or rearrange furniture! LOL

Never heard of an Everglades rat snake. What kind of monitor? Kid down the street had a Savannah Monitor growing up. It was pretty aggressive as I recall. I had a Tokay Gecko that was never going to let an ungloved person handle it. My wife bought an iguana in Guam when she was stationed in Japan. Smuggled it back to the US in her pants when it was 4′ long and had it several more years before I met her. It was a good 6′ long when it died.

We had a blue and gold macaw name Maxi for about 20yrs. Birds are just reptiles with feathers. She accepted and despised our black lab because she was young when he came along, but when he died and we got two small dogs she turned on both of us. She would hold any attention given to those puppies against us and strike like a cobra whenever we tried to handle her. I’ll take 20 ball python bites over one macaw bite any day. Ended up giving her to RoseBerry Bird Rescue and she’s living her best life going to shows, hanging with other birds and people who really know how to care for her. I’m glad she’s happier now, She basically went right back to the nice friendly bird we had for years,

Some of your “advice” about not being able to handle a snake in the yard is comical. As are the comments about not harming animals you aren’t able to use. Please go back and read the original post. I’m simply looking to thin them out, or give them a reason to just keep their distance so I don’t have to deal with them as often. Snakes aren’t evil and do some good which we recognize.

My wife and I were both raised in the country. Yes, she’s gotten a bit pampered and doesn’t love all the critters right at her doorstep, but that’s about it. My oldest is 3.5. She’s outside when the sun is up and comes in when it’s dark. Last fall I posted video/pictures of her retrieving geese in the field while hunting with me at age 2. Every day she checks gopher and raccoon traps on the field edges with me. She’s more suited to rural lifestyle than 90% of the people who post here. Last week she caught a mouse under her bucket by her swing set and was more excited than ever. She’s anxiously awaiting goose season again and was out working on counting with decoys last week.

As far as harming animals, we fully recognize and respect them. We also appreciate balance. No, a snake crawling across the driveway on our land isn’t an issue. Yes, my kids and wife don’t love them up close and personal (which isn’t unreasonable). Our leasers plant about 60 acres of sweet corn. I believe we’ve exterminated around 20 raccoons since June. Each morning I pick off a few crows eating the outside rows as well. If I’m committing a crime or not living with nature, that’s too bad and I’m sorry I hurt your feelings.

Back to original topic…we did come across a pretty substantial “nest” of snakes beneath a ball of washed out tree roots from a deadfall this weekend somewhat close to the walkout side of the house. No I didn’t kill them all. I pulled the log out with a chain and filled in the washed area with a few tractor buckets of dirt and seed. I didn’t know about the guinea hens being such good hunters either. I built a coop for the girls but delayed keeping chickens until the coming spring, so maybe we will add a few Guinea hens and see what they do.

Thanks for some of the positive ideas.

ill give you the same advice that you always give… you should probably just move somewhere else

Coletrain27 wrote:

ill give you the same advice that you always give… you should probably just move somewhere else

…Because living in fear of your house being robbed or a break in is comparable to wanting to thin the critter population near your home?

“A dog license?

Telling you which days you can water your lawn?

Cameras issuing speeding tickets?

…the plot thickens with even more communist places IDOers choose to live”

Coletrain27 wrote:

“A dog license?

Telling you which days you can water your lawn?

Cameras issuing speeding tickets?

…the plot thickens with even more communist places IDOers choose to live”