My new pet snake *PICS*

[redhen]

is it true that pigs will go after snakes and kill them? I hope my Hammie and Dyson dont try that now that they living outside!

 

[gypsy2621]

Quote:
Yes it is true , piggies will eat anything that doesnt eat them first and even at that they will give the eater a run for its money.
nothing meaner than a PO'd piggy.

nothing nastier to heal up than a pig bite either.
beat the piggies to the punch get some guinea hens out there and busy, they will defiantely take care of the piggie vs snake issues.

yeah for a long time it has been said there were copper heads/ cotton mouths and timbers up here, but it wasnt till recently ( last 30 + years) that they have finally admitted to the timbers. probly take them another 30 + to confirm the coppers and cottons.
hell they are still saying there are no Mountain Lions here also, heh.
For the longest time they claimed where I lived before here there were no bear around also, that was proven wrong when a horse and rider were knocked down and the horse mauled.

ETA: link to Fish and Game article.
this is how we manage to get things we do not need in NH
http://www.wildnh.com/Newsroom/News_2003/News_2003_Q3/snakes_091203.htm

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Quote:
Pigs will go after snakes but the one good thing is that a pigs fat layer is so thick that the venom cant get injected far enough in there to do any damage. Now I'm sure there are some cases out there where the pig was hurt but we have never heard of a pig dying from a snakebite.

My Petunia did kill a mouse I have been after in my office for the longest time.

Shes my girl , made my day and I think it made her day to.

 

[chilling in muscadine]

If what you guys are decribing is a mocassin, DO NOT BE FOOLED BY ITS VENOM. A bite from one of these snakes is extremyly painful if not deadly. Redhen, these snakes like to hang out in bodies of standing water. They do not like running water like a river. Lakes are a good place to hunt them but also this is a place you will find the banded water snake that many mistake for a mocassin.

The last cotton mouth mocassin that bit Snakeman, we ended up in two different hospitals. The second hospital was about an hour and a half away and he was in ICU there. The first hospital didn't know how to keep him alive.

I remember he was shivering and rocking back and forth. He couldn't really talk to me much either so I couldn't get the info from him I needed about what he thought he needed. His skin color was tinted red rather strongly. His face was real red and then the whites of his eyes looked the same color of the red on a coke can. He looked like he had been made up in Hollywood for a horror flick or something.

This E.R. doctor asked me if he had looked like that earlier that morning. I just stared at this man for what seemed like an hour because I couldn't beleive what he had just asked me. When I did answer him I said "WELL HELL NO HE DIDNT LOOK LIKE THIS THIS MORNING."

My relationship with the E.R. doctor and hospital staff went down hill from there. Once I was out of the room where Snakeman couldn't here me I slung a fit. I didn't want Snakeman to know it was as bad as it was. I informed them that they were going to find a doctor that was able to treat the bite and they were going to do it right then. I can say I think I scarred them because they were all scrambling to find a doctor. I don't think they wanted me to go off on them again. I want repeat my words on this family forum but they knew I meant business.

Once we got to the hospital an hour and a half away he went right into ICU and there the doctor that treated him was great. Snakeman ended up having to go to a surgeon a couple of weeks later to have the dead tissue on his thumb removed where the bite happend.

This is why I say if it is a mocassin, they carry strong venon. They carry hemotoxins which affect the blood veins. The venom makes the blood veins rupture and starts the digestion of the tissue surrounding the bite.

So please ladies if this is what you have, be careful. I can say with snakes there are so many stories out there that are not true or old wives tales. You would not beleive some of the stories we have heard about snakes through thr years. Thats why I always say "educated one person at a time."

I would love to see a pic if you guys run up on one.

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Gypsy you can tell Cassi she will find many uses for a snakehook. I will use mine on a long hunt sometimes like a walking stick. O.K. maybe not a good example there but I'm much older than her. lol

They are good to poke around spots you think you might find a snake, there good for lifting up logs and old boards to look under so you don't have to get your hands to close just in case you find a venomous snake there.

Also the hook will be good practice for her just in case she decides to move up to other venomous snakes. She will have to be able to know how to use the hook to her advantage so she doesn't get bit. Calling a snake a dork will not hurt its feelings I promise you.

But the most important reason is that every professional snake catcher and handler has a hook to work with. So what ya think now Cassi?

 

[redhen]

next time i see one i will try SO hard to get a pic for you! We do have standing water here..in my back yard (literally)!..lol..we have a swamp/ wet lands. We see them often here.(the mocassins )...but i have always been told that the ones we have up north here are not deadly. they just give a nasty bite.

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Quote:
Thanks Redhen, that would be great but please be careful.

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Earlier on Wednesday afternoon, Id say around 6 or so we heard all the dogs barking. This is the bark we get when someone is here. I have so many dogs, pitts and rottys so not to many people will get out of there vehicle. Smart move if you ask me even though they are all fenced in.

Anyway Snakeman and myself had been napping on the couch and recliner for maybe an hour by that time. Right in the middle of the day but don't tell nobody O.K.

Snakeman went out to see who it was. He let me try and sleep some since I have been so worried about this medical thing I have going on and have missed alot of sleep in the last few days. AHHHHH

Isn't he sweet.

Well it turned out to be a woman and her neice. The woman had moved into her sisters home that day because she saw a snake in a hole of the ceiling of her bathroom and said it was a rattler because it was beating its tail.

Snakeman came back inside the house to tell me the story and to say go ahead and get some rest and he would go and catch the snake. As he was leaving I told him "good luck catching that RATSNAKE."

When they got to the scene the woman pointed out where she had seen the snake and then high tailed it out of there to her sisters place. The snake was captured in 5 minutes or so. Guess what kind of snake it was? You guessed it, a "RATSNAKE."

That is our typical call. Its a rattler and you gotta get it. Ratsnake calls or kings make up about 95% of our rattle snake calls.

Everybody thinks just because they beat there tails they must be a rattler. I'm sure for this same reason many snakes of this breed are killed just because people are scarred and don't know any better.

The rat snake has already been rehomed.We have a list of people wanting them to let loose in there barns and stuff to eat the rats plus eat other venomous snakes.

All in all everything worked out good today. We got this woman back living in her home. The snake got a new home where there will be plenty to eat and no human predators after it and most important of all, I got a good long nap that I needed.

 

[redhen]

Glad you got some rest!

That poor lady! Glad he caught the snake for her so she could go back home to use her potty in peace..

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Odd behavior in people is something that has lead us from time to time to find snakes. This is what happened to us yesterday. We were driving toward our house and past where the road turns off to a dirt road. Up that dirt road we saw a county truck parked with the man up in the back of the truck looking over the side of the truck. Snakeman and myself saw this as we past the road, we both looked at each other, he hit the brakes and we turned around never speaking of what we were thinking.

Of cource we were both thinking "SNAKE."

When we got there the man said the snake was trying to eat the plastic bottle. The snake was rubbing its body up aginst the bank trying to get loose from the plastic rings. It was a king snake and what had happened was the snake was stuck through the plastic rings that held together small mixture bottles. Ya know mixture that you would add to gas to run a chainsaw but some of the bottles were still attached to the plastic rings that held the original six pack. Poor baby.

We cut the rings loose and freed the snake. This is why I always cut those plastic rings before I through them away since I do know all types of creatures often get stuck in them. Before we released the snake we had to let the county worker get back in his truck.

We got a big laugh out of this and also saved a snake. We have often stopped when we have witnessed odd behavior through the years and most of the time it is a snake that needs saving.

Several years ago we came across a rat snake that had the thin circle of plastic that is at the bottom of a coke top bottle stuck around its body. This poor snake had the thing stuck to where it was embedded into its body. The plastic ring had been there awhile. That was a job removing that without hurting the snake. After several months of doctering on the snake we released it here on our property.

The snake still lives in one of my barns. Of cource its easy to identify through the scar it permanetly has. We see it almost everytime we go into that barn. It hangs out in the rafters. Every year after the snakes come out of hybernation we always look for it. I'm sure the snake would have eventually died if we hadn't found it.