Bizarrely aggressive garter snake

[Rose_adamaj]

If I accidentally did it in with the kick it would honestly be for the best. There's just something really off about that snake for it to be acting like that. I didn't see where it landed unfortunately so hard to check on what happened to it. I'll just have to wait for the next time it rains and washes away my cayenne and then make sure I have my tall boots on again when I go out in case it's still around.


That's why I had a good inspection of it while stood on it; was finding it hard to believe it was actually a garter but I'm pretty good with snake IDs and it definitely is. I've had rat snakes get aggressive when cornered or surprised but even those didn't strike unless prodded. Never had a snake of any sort deliberately dart out at me - even venomous snakes I've run into in other regions have preferred to run away first.

I tried to grab it once in the pats with gloves but couldn't get a good hold on it. Part of the problem is I don't want to grab it bare handed if it's going to be a biter; even non-venomous snake bites can bleed a lot and/or get nasty later due to infection or allergic reactions and this one is big enough it would break the skin. I've had no trouble grabbing smaller garters around my coop before but did it bare handed for better dexterity because I wasn't worried about them biting or even breaking the skin if they did.



Ah yep I know that sort of trap design - used something similar with predatory marine worms in an aquarium once (with small bottle instead of the big ones). Not sure what I could bait a snake trap with though...will have to look that up since I thought they mostly go off of heat and movement rather than scent. I'm currently trying to trap a mouse that's being a pest in my house, so maybe I can just use that once I nab it if they go for scent too. With my luck though I might come down in the morning to find the resident skunk with half a pop bottle stuck on its head.

Skunk with half a bottle stuck on it head

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well, I thought the darned snake was gone. It's back, just not under the front door step. I have a hen that's extremely far-sighted, so she's a bit vision challenged for foraging, and she stumbled on it today. I don't think she could see what it was, so she was just casually doing the "hmm what's this?" head wiggle back and forth as it was slowly coiling up in front of her. It went for her as I scooped her up but it missed. Then it went into a crack in a cement wall before either my roosters or I could do anything about it. Blasted thing.

I thought it was gone, so I'd been letting my 2-week-old chicks out in a little tractor every couple days. Not safe if that thing's still hanging about.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Aaaand it's under the front door step again, all the better to bite my boot.

Meanwhile I have a hen that I initially thought got stung by a wasp on her face yesterday and now has ear lobe and facial swelling because of it, but I later realized the "sting" marks were kind of in a U-shape about the size of that stupid snake's head.

 

[SmiYa0126]

Aaaand it's under the front door step again, all the better to bite my boot.

Meanwhile I have a hen that I initially thought got stung by a wasp on her face yesterday and now has ear lobe and facial swelling because of it, but I later realized the "sting" marks were kind of in a U-shape about the size of that stupid snake's head.

Can you capture it and relocate it?

 

[DonyaQuick]

Can you capture it and relocate it?

That's what I normally do with regular garters when they're hanging around the coop too much; I just grab them and carry them off, although I have seen that there's decent odds they'll come back once or twice if it's just walking way out into the forest. I don't mind that so much for "nice" snakes that I can just pick up and carry off again where they aren't really being a threat, but this particular demon snake is a somewhat different situation.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Ok so I really jinxed myself with that last post. It came out again when I let my chickens out. Why it's drawn to adult birds I have no idea. Anyway, with some rooster help and following another ridiculous snake battle, I now have an angry but seemingly unharmed snake in a Tupperware and don't know what to do with it.

It has four rear fangs (not 2 like garters are supposed to have??) and squirted some juice from near those teeth while I had hold of its head and it was giving me a really good look inside the mouth. Venom? Just snake spit? Some other secretion? I don't know. Definitely what bit my poor hen with the puffy face though (who is doing good, just puffy).

 

[Geena]

Ok so I really jinxed myself with that last post. It came out again when I let my chickens out. Why it's drawn to adult birds I have no idea. Anyway, with some rooster help and following another ridiculous snake battle, I now have an angry but seemingly unharmed snake in a Tupperware and don't know what to do with it.

It has four rear fangs (not 2 like garters are supposed to have??) and squirted some juice from near those teeth while I had hold of its head and it was giving me a really good look inside the mouth. Venom? Just snake spit? Some other secretion? I don't know. Definitely what bit my poor hen with the puffy face though (who is doing good, just puffy).

Can you take a pic of it?

 

[DonyaQuick]

Can you take a pic of it?

I can't unfortunately; the tupperware it was in wasn't clear enough to see anything but an outline and that snake is quite far away now.

It was one of these; not my picture but the same color morph.

(from https://msherps.com/snakes/common-gartersnake/ and obviously upstate NY is not Mississippi but it's a very wide spread species and that was the color morph)

I don't know what was up with the extra set of teeth I saw, but they are actually classed as mildly venomous even though the venome doesn't harm large animals like humans. In truth, I have never seen inside another garter snake mouth and the pictures online are pretty sparse so I don't have a lot of points of comparison for what to expect in there.

Interestingly, while the bad snake was still in the tupperware, my husband was mowing and found another one. Mr mowing field snake was exactly what I'm used to with garter snakes: preferred to move away, easily handled, and never opened its mouth once. Not sure why I couldn't have had that one under my doorstep instead of its psycho cousin.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Quick update on the hen that I'm pretty sure was bitten by the nasty garter snake: it took her nearly two weeks for her face to go back to normal. She was bitten on the earlobe and the rest of the same side of her face got puffy over the first few days all the way up to the mouth and nares, then started to subside but it was a very slow process. I used VetRX on her face since I was worried about sinus complications and wanted to make sure she didn't get stuffy. I put it around her nose, but she also seemed to like having it rubbed on her earlobe and throat. Only had to do that for the first week and then the swelling had retreated far enough back from her sinuses that I was less worried about something secondary setting in. Two of the puncture marks got crusty and drained a small bit of clear fluid a couple of times early on and then dried up and became almost invisible; most of the puffiness was just irritation/inflammation and not an abscess or something similar. Her face is fine now, although she still has a little lump left on the earlobe where the worst puncture mark was, but I think that may be scar tissue.

Snake is still gone; don't expect it to come back. Good riddance. A couple of other much more peaceful garters have since moved into the area in front of the house. I don't mind them; they run away from both the chickens and me.

Anyway, just wanted to give some more details about the snake bite situation in case any one else runs into something that, since I couldn't find much at the time when I first realized what had happened to that hen.

 

[LaFleche]

Thank you very much for this update!

I am glad your hen recovered so well from this nasty experience.

With regard to the unusual agressiveness of the snake: Could she have been protecting her newly born offspring hidden under your doorstep?