Snake ID please?

[Miss Red]

My vote is for rat snake. I had one the other day in the shed, when I went to dispose of him he spit up the chick he was working on and sat up like a cobra. The ones we get around here are mean.

 

[wsmoak]

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I wanted him to be a pine snake based on the markings, but the head shape isn't right.

Either way, he's big! I posted a new picture of the whole snake: http://www.pbase.com/wendysmoak/image/124278937

The chickens are inside wood and woven hardware cloth at night, though I think we need to reinforce the door -- it only latches at the top and I bet he could force his way in.

 

[TwistedSerpent]

Definatly not a pine, its 100% a black rat. Not a ton of difference though between the two behaviour wise, although pines, bulls, and gopher snakes are known to put on a huge agressive show but being mostly bluffers. You can tell you have a pine as soon as you touch it, it has rough keeled skales (theres a raised ridge in the middle of each scale) where ratsnakes are smooth.

Very nice looking black rat, the ones down south are so much prettier then the ones we have up north, usually get much bigger too. What are you planning on doing with it?

 

[shaky]

Its a ratsnake, though generally called a "greenish" rat snake, its the same species as the black rat, Elaphe obsoletus. Its a color morph of the black. There are also yellows, grays, and Texas rat snakes, all the same species.

 

[wsmoak]

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Um, by "caught it coming out of the bird house..." in my original report I meant I *saw* it. I didn't capture it!

I am not so sure of my snake identification skills that I go around picking them up.

And did I mention it was HUGE?

I seriously came inside and looked up 'boa constrictor' thinking maybe someone's pet got loose.

He can live out there as long as he leaves the chickens alone. They're up by the house where there is more activity, so I doubt he'll come that close. Next year we'll figure out something else for the bluebird houses. Though I can't really think of anything to mount them on that would keep this guy out given that he climbed up 8' on a utility pole!

--
Wendy

 

[TwistedSerpent]

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Greenish rats are not a black rat morph, theyre a naturally occuring cross between black rats and yellow rats usually, sometimes with corns too. Combine black with yellow and you end up with a muddy dirty looking off green color, hense their name.

Haha its ok, from the pictures it kind of looked like you caught it. Its a shame people are so quick to kill them they really are very benefitial to have around, just got to make sure they cant get in the coop. For the bird houses justput a flat ring around the pole with edges pointing downwards, the snake wont be able to get around it.

 

[Mervin]

wsmoak

In my experience, they're not particularly put off by human activity. Obviously they're not crazy about us, but they don't seem to go out of their way to avoid us either. We used to have on under our front porch. I didn't mind since it kill of the moles. I've also seen them living under heavily utilized swimming pool decks as well. The point is, I'd keep a pretty watchful eye of any chicks or eggs.

 

[wsmoak]

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Yeah. About that. We were just out there at sunset checking out the garden, and I went to turn on the water, calling out "Roberta Rat Snake if you're out here, you need to go somewhere else..." and promptly saw her lying there all stretched out two steps away! EEEEEK! And she didn't so much as twitch.

She has obviously been eating well, she's all lumpy.

I went and got the camera and a measuring tape. Yep, every bit of 6 feet long.

She let DH touch her and only turned her head around to watch. I must have pressed too hard (or she had just had enough of humans) because she wound herself up and glared at us. Oops.

We left her alone to digest her dinner. She's probably snarfing up the plague of toads we're having out there. I hope the name means she actually *eats* rats and mice?

After I irritated her:

http://www.pbase.com/image/124309511

The chickens are pretty big now, and not laying eggs yet so shouldn't be _too_ much of a temptation. I hope.