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A Snake In My Yard

Discussion in 'Pets & Critters' started by Emma Smith, Apr 14, 2019.

  1. Emma Smith

    Emma Smith Veteran Member
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    @Don Alaska - Of course, the snakes could probably feel the vibration of the cattle and skedaddle if they could.

    They can feel vibration, according to the article posted by @Joe Riley above. I had one slither into the woods, not too far ahead of my lawn mower.
     
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  2. Emma Smith

    Emma Smith Veteran Member
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    Okefenokee Joe, a 1985 article but still interesting, once told of getting bit by a rattle snake. He had it in a snake sack (or other bag), and when he reached back from the driver's seat, it struck just as he touched the bag, biting the tip of his finger.
     
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  3. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    The only snake that ever chased me was a blowsnake. Although we knew them as blowsnakes, they are also known as hognose snakes or puff adders. The only place I have seen them, growing up, with along a section of Old Highway 41, where they had straightened out a curve in the highway and closed the original section, leaving the deteriorating pavement behind. They had a mile poison that they would spit at whatever it was they wanted to kill. I've never seen them feeding but was told that they ate toads. Although not venomous or even particularly poisonous, they were scary looking snakes because they would puff up what you might think of as their neck, if snakes had necks. Sometimes it looked like they were blowing up like a balloon but other times it would extend to both sides, making them look like a cobra. Otherwise, they looked a little bit like a rattlesnake, except without the rattle, so they had a lot of fakery going on.

    blowsnake.jpg

    However, when teased, they would go into a coil and go through the cobra routine, and they might strike at you a time or two. But if that didn't work, they would play dead. They would take on the appearance of a snake that wasn't even freshly dead but which has been dead for a while. You could flip them over or carry them on a stick, and they'd seem to be dead. However, one day my cousins and I came across one. We were maybe eight or nine. We teased it and it struck at us a couple of times. But we couldn't get it to play dead, so we started walking away. I turned around to find that the snake was coming after us. The damned thing chased us for about an eighth of a mile.

    We had no truly venomous snakes, so we got to know snakes pretty well since we didn't have to worry about the dangers of trial and error so much. There was a risk of infection from a bite, but that's about it.
     
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  4. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    I had a rather humorous incident involving a hognose snake when I was dating my wife in the early years. Her entire family was terrified of snakes and would kill any snake they found anywhere. We were walking through a forest ares (in Illinois, I think) when I came across a hognose sunning itself. My wife was behind me, so I picked up a stick and poked the snake. First, it wiggled its tail in the dry leaves and sounded like a rattlesnake, so I poked it again and it went through the "cobra" routine. I was laughing so hard at my wife's terror that I almost fell over. Soon it dropped over "dead' and at that point we left it alone. As you can see, I put my wife-to-be through some significant trials, but I had to make sure she could put up with me in the long term.
     
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