Baby Cakes got snake bit

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Pearl

Finder of lost things AND The Boss
Neighbor
HCL Supporter
Joined
Apr 19, 2021
Messages
17,045
Location
North central Texas
She was always quite the snake killer! Called her for dinner just a bit ago and she was by the woods edge whooping on a small copperhead. She took it in the woods and came back up just now with a very swollen back leg. Crushed up half a lysine, a quarter of a tramadol, and a quarter of a prednisone in her food. She ate it all and is resting on the front porch. Guess the cooler weather has the snakes active!
 
There was a large bull snake crossing the road I was on eariler today.
When I saw her I jumped back a tad. Luckily my dogs are very suspicious of snakes n dont mess with them.
Anyways after I got a good look n realized it was a bull snake , I thought of you Pearl but kept going.
As I was walking back , someone ran her over.
She was almost out of the road when I saw her..someone went out her their way to run her over n she was lying on the edge of the road twitching.
Bull snakes are constrictors..non venomous n good to have. They have a scarry resemblance to western rattlers..but that is part of their defensive make up.
I'm not a huge snake fan but I felt pretty sad seeing her twitching in pain.. I prayed she would go quickly.
 
She was always quite the snake killer! Called her for dinner just a bit ago and she was by the woods edge whooping on a small copperhead. She took it in the woods and came back up just now with a very swollen back leg. Crushed up half a lysine, a quarter of a tramadol, and a quarter of a prednisone in her food. She ate it all and is resting on the front porch. Guess the cooler weather has the snakes active!
In South Dakota, there have been rattlesnake outings, where people will go out and look for all that they can find to help eliminate them. Cattle have died as a result of them. Sounds like you and hubby need to do a copperhead hunt and elimination.

https://www.capjournal.com/news/mr-...cle_d3e92998-a8b2-11e2-accb-001a4bcf887a.html
 
All that said..I dont think I'd do well living in a region with several species of venomous snakes. I'm very grateful we just have rattlers out here. I havent seen one on my property yet but I'm sure they are here. My neighbor down the road killed one last year. I will too if j ever come across any on my turf..cant mess around with them. Luckily the turkeys n chickens keep all the baby snakes n rodent pop down alot.
 
All that said..I dont think I'd do well living in a region with several species of venomous snakes. I'm very grateful we just have rattlers out here. I havent seen one on my property yet but I'm sure they are here. My neighbor down the road killed one last year. I will too if j ever come across any on my turf..cant mess around with them. Luckily the turkeys n chickens keep all the baby snakes n rodent pop down alot.
Rattlesnakes around the home was one of the reasons and times that my grandfather would get his gun out, and use it.
 
There was a large bull snake crossing the road I was on eariler today.
When I saw her I jumped back a tad. Luckily my dogs are very suspicious of snakes n dont mess with them.
Anyways after I got a good look n realized it was a bull snake , I thought of you Pearl but kept going.
As I was walking back , someone ran her over.
She was almost out of the road when I saw her..someone went out her their way to run her over n she was lying on the edge of the road twitching.
Bull snakes are constrictors..non venomous n good to have. They have a scarry resemblance to western rattlers..but that is part of their defensive make up.
I'm not a huge snake fan but I felt pretty sad seeing her twitching in pain.. I prayed she would go quickly.
I think they actually eat or run off other snakes. I don’t like any of them but at least know there are good and bad ones
 
I think they actually eat or run off other snakes. I don’t like any of them but at least know there are good and bad ones
There are rattlers in the mountains to my east so I had to watch for them in my backpacking days. But around here all snakes are good.

Sea story

I was headed back from the orchard on The Ridge passing through a shallow gulley were I had run a garden hose (a zillion miles) to water the trees. The Princess tells the story of me jumping back and letting loose a loud "what?". I freaked out wondering why the garden hose was moving!

It was a black snake running away from me as fast as it could. (Do snakes run?)

Story Done.

We used to have a resident garter snake the granddaughters named " Greg". It patrolled my garden. Sadly it swallowed a large critter then tried to crawl through some deer netting. Bummer.

Ben
 
She was always quite the snake killer! Called her for dinner just a bit ago and she was by the woods edge whooping on a small copperhead. She took it in the woods and came back up just now with a very swollen back leg. Crushed up half a lysine, a quarter of a tramadol, and a quarter of a prednisone in her food. She ate it all and is resting on the front porch. Guess the cooler weather has the snakes active!

Did someone do some dozer work? dig a foundation, clear brush, construction started, plow a field? done something to put copperheads on the move close by? What about the new ignorant neighbors? Clearing fence lines?

Didn't you just cut down some trees?

Granted 'snakes start crawling' this time of year looking for winter dens. Might just be a coincidence... but 2 in 2 days? :oops:
 
We have Copperheads here, but I have only seen them once in the woodpile at my old house.

What I have seen several times at my current house is at least one maybe two large Black Snakes. I imagine they keep the snake population to a minimum, which is fine with me.
 
Did someone do some dozer work? dig a foundation, clear brush, construction started, plow a field? done something to put copperheads on the move close by? What about the new ignorant neighbors? Clearing fence lines?

Didn't you just cut down some trees?

Granted 'snakes start crawling' this time of year looking for winter dens. Might just be a coincidence... but 2 in 2 days? :oops:
Thinking it was the extreme heat and drought!! 🤔
 
I start seeing snakes crawl in late september, normal here. It could be seasonal but if a creek dried up in late august there'd be no food left there by now. Might have forced them to move. Snakes only crawl for food, breeding and colder weather. They'll stay at a regular food source, once gone, they move.

edit... oops... and move if disturbed by man's activity.

Several folks have mentioned black snakes... here i look for speckled king snakes, a great snake to keep around. They kill pit vipers. It's been years since i've seen one. I'd catch it and bring it here if i did.

I think hashbrown does the same... it's a very good snake to keep on a farm.
 
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I start seeing snakes crawl in late september, normal here. It could be seasonal but if a creek dried up in late august there'd be no food left there by now. Might have forced them to move. Snakes only crawl for food, breeding and colder weather. They'll stay at a regular food source, once gone, they move.
I had just looked for this story fairly recently, because it is the time of year that snakes will go back to a snake den for the winter.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_McHale_Slaughterback
Katherine McHale Slaughterback (July 25, 1893 – October 6, 1969), popularly called Rattlesnake Kate, but also known as Kate Garner, was a woman from Colorado. She garnered fame for an incident in which she killed 140 rattlesnakes.

Early life​

Katherine McHale Slaughterback was born on July 25, 1893 (or 1894[1]) in a log cabin near Longmont, Colorado.

Slaughterback attended nursing school at St. Joseph's School of Nursing[1] and moved to Hudson, Colorado.[2] She was a skilled taxidermist and frequently wore pants instead of dresses, which was unusual for women of her era.[3]

Slaughterback married and divorced six times—one of her husbands was Jack Slaughterback.[1] She had one son, Ernie Adamson.[4]

Rattlesnake namesake​

On October 28, 1925, Slaughterback singlehandedly killed 140 rattlesnakes.[2] Slaughterback and her son Ernie were on horseback headed to a lake near her farm. Hunters had been there the day before, and she was hoping to find harvested ducks left behind. However, she instead found over 100 migrating rattlesnakes. She shot the snakes until she ran out of ammunition for her .22 caliber Remington rifle, at which point she grabbed a nearby sign (allegedly, it said "No Hunting") and bludgeoned the remaining snakes to death.[3]

Of her ordeal, Slaughterback later said:

I fought them with a club not more than 3 feet long, whirling constantly for over two hours before I could kill my way out of them and get back to my faithful horse and Ernie, who were staring at me during my terrible battle not more than 60 feet away[2]
She was "frantic that [the snakes] would frighten the horse, and cause him to rear up and throw Ernie into the snakes."[5] After she returned to her farm, a neighbor learned of what had happened, which eventually led to a reporter coming to photograph and interview her. She strung the dead snakes together on a rope for the photograph, which became infamous. She would later make herself a dress, shoes, and belt from the snakeskins.[2] The dress, made from the skins of 53 rattlesnakes, was particularly famous. She claimed later that she received an offer from the Smithsonian Institution to buy it for US$2,000.[5]

Her story became popular and was written about it the New York Evening Journal. News of her exploits was reported as far away as Germany, Belgium, Scotland, France, England, Mexico, and Canada.[6]

Later in life, Slaughterback raised rattlesnakes, milking them for their venom and selling it to scientists in California.[2] Three weeks before her death, Slaughterback donated her famous rattlesnake skin dress to the Greeley Municipal Museum; Ernie donated more of her possessions after her death, including her Remington rifle.[3]

 
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Rattlesnakes around the home was one of the reasons and times that my grandfather would get his gun out, and use it.
Every now and again Grandpa would grab his revolver and one round. There would be a new rattle drying on the den shelf.

You people make me appreciate living in Alaska even more. We have no snakes.
 
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Every now and again Grandpa would grab his revolver and one round. There would be a new rattle drying on the den shelf.
Grandpa smoked a pipe with Prince Edward tobacco that came in a tin. One of those tins was full of the rattles that they had collected during their time on the ranch. My mother's oldest brother got that can, and now his daughter has it.
 
Popular snake deterrent plants: garlic plants, onion plants, West Indian lemongrass, marigolds.
Also vinegar and ammonia. Up to ten baby snakes per copperhead hatching, but @Pearl you said the one that hit you yesterday was a big one...
We had a king snake, I've mentioned this before, on our property, a 6 footer, unfortunately someone thought better to kill him. The next week I had a copperhead cross my path near the house.
If i thought I could stand it, I'd raise king snakes. :D They are not docile. Like having a doberman around to keep out the riffraff.
 
There was a large bull snake crossing the road I was on eariler today.
When I saw her I jumped back a tad. Luckily my dogs are very suspicious of snakes n dont mess with them.
Anyways after I got a good look n realized it was a bull snake , I thought of you Pearl but kept going.
As I was walking back , someone ran her over.
She was almost out of the road when I saw her..someone went out her their way to run her over n she was lying on the edge of the road twitching.
Bull snakes are constrictors..non venomous n good to have. They have a scarry resemblance to western rattlers..but that is part of their defensive make up.
I'm not a huge snake fan but I felt pretty sad seeing her twitching in pain.. I prayed she would go quickly.
Good snakes to have around, here in southern Oregon they get up over 5 feet and they can fool you due to the diamond shaped markings, like a timber rattler and they wiggly their tails in dry leaves and that can sound just like a rattle snake, many times I've had to take a good look at the head, which is much narrower than a rattler and the tail, to make sure it doesn't have rattles. And, like Patchouli mentioned, King snakes and bull snakes are not docile, they can have a rather nasty attitude, just hearing them hiss can raise the hair on the back of my neck, scared our young son, one time, so bad that he ran to his mom, jumped up and wrapped his arms around her, I had to peel him off her.
 
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OH!!!! No!!!! Another copperhead. I hate snakes.
Is Baby Cakes ok? Is there anyway you can keep the kitties inside until its to cold for the snakes to be out and about?
My kitties were always inside, they didn't miss going out. They were feral 5 month old kittens when we adopted them.
The three outside cats WON'T have anything to do with coming inside! Plus they do kill snakes. The two inside never go out. Everyone has their place!
 
I start seeing snakes crawl in late september, normal here. It could be seasonal but if a creek dried up in late august there'd be no food left there by now. Might have forced them to move. Snakes only crawl for food, breeding and colder weather. They'll stay at a regular food source, once gone, they move.

edit... oops... and move if disturbed by man's activity.

Several folks have mentioned black snakes... here i look for speckled king snakes, a great snake to keep around. They kill pit vipers. It's been years since i've seen one. I'd catch it and bring it here if i did.

I think hashbrown does the same... it's a very good snake to keep on a farm.
We always kept them in the barns
Never saw a mouse or pit vipers. Ill go outta my way not to harm them.
Sat on one on a hay bale once and bought jumped outta the barn when it started wiggling. 🤣
 
In South Dakota, there have been rattlesnake outings, where people will go out and look for all that they can find to help eliminate them.
== ==
When my big brother was chief sheriffs deputy west river he had a reserve officer who was a local pastor.. The guy acting as a sort of Chaplin to the department.. He would live trap rattle snakes from an area near a housing development there and sell the snakes to the local reptile tourist attraction... We always kidded him ...did he put those snakes to work on Sunday before selling them on Monday...
 
@Tim Horton Texas has the rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater each March. I would not be attending that, pretty yuck. Like a snake festival, I think the snakes are set fire, all kinds of goings on. Finally there have been some protests against the event but not sure how far they'll get with that since it is Texas and there are lots of rattlesnakes. They catch too many in my opinion. May have been a time and a place for it at one time...
 
@Tim Horton Texas has the rattlesnake roundup in Sweetwater each March. I would not be attending that, pretty yuck. Like a snake festival, I think the snakes are set fire, all kinds of goings on. Finally there have been some protests against the event but not sure how far they'll get with that since it is Texas and there are lots of rattlesnakes. They catch too many in my opinion. May have been a time and a place for it at one time...
I dated a guy (many moons ago) who won that!! Guess that's why I ended up with a city guy!! Baby Cakes is finally doing great! Her leg is still a little sensitive (so us mine), but she's using it!
 
Super glad Baby Cakes is doing great, not a slow recovery. Which kitty is Baby Cakes? Some dogs are trained or have the gift of smelling a snake being nearby. Any of yours have that yet? 🐍
Edited to add: Glad you're doing better, @Pearl !!!🩺💉🔬🔫⛏️ that snake had better find a different home.
 
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