Weekly snake thread

Is it guud ruck when the 1st snake seen for the year a beauty? This 2’ king was sunning in the driveway a couple days ago. They’re so calm, even when warm, never even threatened to bite or musk when I picked him up. Damned covid, I wanted my grandsons to hold him as well.
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When I put him down in the woods, I understood why I very rarely see them. I would have thought the glossy black and whitish stripes would make him stand out, nope.
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Wow, beautiful snake. I've yet to see one in NC.
 
Back in 2009, our Golden Retriever started sniffing around our electric meter on the side of the house. When the house was built, there was a large knockout mistakenly knocked out, leaving about a 3" hole in the bottom of the electric box. I shined a flashlight up inside, and saw a black snake completely curled up in there. I touched it with a WOODEN stick, and it moved. It was alive. I figured the way it found itself up there, it can find its way out.

A few days later, we started smelling an awful stench coming from the area around the electric meter, and I surmised what had happened. Sure enough, this time when I poked the snake with the WOODEN stick, it was dead. And decomposing. And stinking... I called Duke power company and told them I needed someone to come out and remove the seal so we could open the electric box and remove the dead snake. The gal said it would be a week or two before they could get someone out. I told her the snake was dead and STINKING. I couldn't wait that long. So, she told me to just go ahead and cut the seal and remove it. She said she would put a notation on my account explaining why the seal was removed.


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It came in through that large hole on the bottom left.


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I found wasp nests, bird nests and all sorts of junk in there.


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He got nailed on the TOP terminals of the meter, which are the INPUT terminals to the meter.
At lease I didn't have to PAY for the electricity that killed him!


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He was a good sized snake. By the time I got to him, he was decomposing, had partially "liquefied" and stunk to high heaven.


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Disposed of him, cleaned all the rest of the other nests out of the electric box, and used two pieces of UN-plated circuit board material to fix the hole. Put 1 round disc on the inside of the box, and another on the outside, and with a nut & bolt through both of them, sealed the hole from any more outside critters.

The electric box remained without a seal until the meter was replaced last year with the new smart meters.
 
Back in 2009, our Golden Retriever started sniffing around our electric meter on the side of the house. When the house was built, there was a large knockout mistakenly knocked out, leaving about a 3" hole in the bottom of the electric box. I shined a flashlight up inside, and saw a black snake completely curled up in there. I touched it with a WOODEN stick, and it moved. It was alive. I figured the way it found itself up there, it can find its way out.

A few days later, we started smelling an awful stench coming from the area around the electric meter, and I surmised what had happened. Sure enough, this time when I poked the snake with the WOODEN stick, it was dead. And decomposing. And stinking... I called Duke power company and told them I needed someone to come out and remove the seal so we could open the electric box and remove the dead snake. The gal said it would be a week or two before they could get someone out. I told her the snake was dead and STINKING. I couldn't wait that long. So, she told me to just go ahead and cut the seal and remove it. She said she would put a notation on my account explaining why the seal was removed.


View attachment 206056
It came in through that large hole on the bottom left.


View attachment 206057
I found wasp nests, bird nests and all sorts of junk in there.


View attachment 206058
He got nailed on the TOP terminals of the meter, which are the INPUT terminals to the meter.
At lease I didn't have to PAY for the electricity that killed him!


View attachment 206059
He was a good sized snake. By the time I got to him, he was decomposing, had partially "liquefied" and stunk to high heaven.


View attachment 206061
Disposed of him, cleaned all the rest of the other nests out of the electric box, and used two pieces of UN-plated circuit board material to fix the hole. Put 1 round disc on the inside of the box, and another on the outside, and with a nut & bolt through both of them, sealed the hole from any more outside critters.

The electric box remained without a seal until the meter was replaced last year with the new smart meters.
It looks like to his demise, the snake smelled & found the bird’s nest.
 
Found this one today under a black plastic sheet covering a pallet of old masonry cement. At the rental house we are working on.

Unfortunately it ran under the metal pipe I was swinging.

Need a few big king snakes to patrol the premises.snake 61.jpg
 
Found this one today under a black plastic sheet covering a pallet of old masonry cement. At the rental house we are working on.

Unfortunately it ran under the metal pipe I was swinging.

Need a few big king snakes to patrol the premises.View attachment 206680

Soak it in some good 'shine, keep rolling it up and then laying it flay and it'll make a fine hatband sooner or later ;)
 
This little guy fell out of a concrete block I moved today.
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Was doing a bee swarm rescue in the swamp near my shop. Found a baby copperhead sunning on a pallet. It was faster than I was and disappeared into the marsh grass.
 
I have seen one dead small copperhead, but over the spring I am finding a metric crap-ton of smooth earth snakes in and around our garden....
 
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still haven't spotted any snakes, but I did run across a skink hanging out between two cinder blocks. when i moved one block i saw that he had a grip on a lady snake. and from the looks of the red bit coming out from between his legs, i interrupted a private moment.
Like humans, the lady scurried off to hide and the guy just sat there giving me a very grumpy look.
 
I took him out golfing..








:D


Gently of course, I figured the head shape was not venomous.
So, down to the wooded hill side.
It was pretty docile. until I bumped it too hard. then it coiled up and shook it's tail like a rattler.
 
I took him out golfing..



:D


Gently of course, I figured the head shape was not venomous.
So, down to the wooded hill side.
It was pretty docile. until I bumped it too hard. then it coiled up and shook it's tail like a rattler.

They are cool snakes that actually makes great pets, if you are into that sort of thing. I get irrationally excited about them. Have not seen one yet in NC though.
 
Saw some kind of snake in the road the other night, probably 2-3 feet long. flipped around and confirmed it was a snake and not a piece of rope... it was not a healthy snake, and was bloody all over and split open in a few places, partially run over. might have just been a ratsnake, but it was pretty dark. It wasn't moving at the time but I sure wasn't going to grab it to see if it was still alive... so I flipped another u-turn and did it a little favor.
Sorry, little guy. May your offspring thrive on the local squirrels and mice forever.
 
Baby Copperhead?
 

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Yep.

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Another Covid death...
If it wasn't for C-19, my wife would have been at work instead of planting flowers!
 
Dead baby copperhead, I hope.
I hate to be the one to say it, but there are others somewhere.
 
Dead baby copperhead, I hope.
I hate to be the one to say it, but there are others somewhere.
Cut in half so, dead but doesn't know it.
She's testing the wives tale that snakes don't die until night time (???) apparently, her grandmother taught her that.
He's an angry little thing!


I switched her to leather gloves and told her there would probably be more.
She let the chickens into that side of the yard, they stay pretty close to her so maybe they will find them first!
 
Cut in half so, dead but doesn't know it.
She's testing the wives tale that snakes don't die until night time (???) apparently, her grandmother taught her that.
He's an angry little thing!


I switched her to leather gloves and told her there would probably be more.
She let the chickens into that side of the yard, they stay pretty close to her so maybe they will find them first!

so, you’re torturing it
 
so, you’re torturing it
I'm guessing that you think so.
I also don't turn around and humanly euthanize them after I run them over with my truck so, I'm a dick.
 
I'm guessing that you think so.
I also don't turn around and humanly euthanize them after I run them over with my truck so, I'm a dick.

Copperheads are tough. One time I was bushhogging along a gravel roadside in a 95hp Case tractor, heavy sucker, filled tires, 8' International twin-spindle cutter on back. 2.5' Copperhead in the road. I just about spun the skin off of it before it quit trashing about. Another time, I was on a paved neighborhood road and came up on a lady stopped with her hand out the window. She pointed to a snake in the middle of the road. "Is that a Copperhead?" she asks. Yes ma'am. "Would you run over it?" Yes ma'am. I was in a 2002 F250 7.3. The thing popped like a big zit. Splattered the side of her white car with snake stuff. "Sorry about that". 'No problem, I'm just glad it's dead' she says. :)
 
Kingsnake!

Let him live. He eats copperheads and whatnot.
They do indeed. I was using a bushhog several years ago and saw a copperhead in the tall grass a few feet from the tractor. I whipped out my Dirty Harry Special and blasted away about where I figured the head would be. Two big lengths of snake flew in opposite directions. One was copperhead colored and the other was kingsnake colored. I was somewhat surprised since I had not seen the kingsnake. I investigated and found that the kingsnake was in the process of eating the copperhead, and I blasted them between their heads. The head of the kingsnake with the body of the copperhead inside its mouth was one of the parts, and the body of the kingsnake with the copperhead head inside was the other part. I wish I had seen the kingsnake because I would like to have watched and because I do not kill kingsnakes intentionally.

A snake can wiggle around a long time after their head has been removed. A LEO friend of mine brought me a snake to be skinned one evening. It had been decapitated by gunfire when it tried to cross a police range while several officers were shooting. It stayed in the fellow's trunk in the hot Florida summer sunshine from about 3 pm until about 7 pm when I got it. I had to go into work and finally got home about 11. The heart was still beating and the muscles were still contracting when I skinned it about 8 hours after it had been shot.
 
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They do indeed. I was using a bushhog several years ago and saw a copperhead in the tall grass a few feet from the tractor. I whipped out my Dirty Harry Special and blasted away about where I figured the head would be. Two big lengths of snake flew in opposite directions. One was copperhead colored and the other was kingsnake colored. I was somewhat surprised since I had not seen the kingsnake. I investigated and found that the kingsnake was in the process of eating the copperhead, and I blasted them between their heads. The head of the kingsnake with the body of the copperhead inside its mouth was one of the parts, and the body of the kingsnake with the copperhead head inside was the other part. I wish I had seen the kingsnake because I would like to have watched and because I do not kill kingsnakes intentionally.

A snake can wiggle around a long time after their head has been removed. A LEO friend of mine brought me a snake to be skinned one evening. It had been decapitated by gunfire when it tried to cross a police range while several officers were shooting. It stayed in the fellow's trunk in the hot Florida summer sunshine from about 3 pm until about 7 pm when I got it. I had to go into work and finally got home about 11. The heart was still beating and the muscles were still contracting when I skinned it about 8 hours after it had been shot.

Cool story!
The big black snakes around here will also eat copperheads.
 
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