Weekly snake thread

Carolinatlc said:
Had a nice black racer show up Monday. Son went out to shoot basketball around 9am and went through the garage to the driveway. Snake must have come in over night and was up against the garage door. Son opened the door and it slithered off into the storage room in the garage. This turned into an impromptu cleaning out of the storage room and organizing it trying to find the snake and get it out. Ended up being around 5 feet. He was pretty aggressive, more so than the last one we found. He sprayed that nasty musk in the storage room when I was trying to pull him out from under some wire shelves. Ended up carrying him out in the backyard to watch him for a few minutes and then directed him towards a natural area.
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It looks like a black rat due to the checkered white belly.
 
We found this little Dekay brown snake hiding under the trash can. My wife rolled over one last week while she was rolling the trash bin out. She lifted up the can first and saw this one. Took it out and had my youngest daughter put it near the compost bin.
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Had this guy come by while I was lookin out my window today. I don't know much about snakes but I know he no brown, he no have Hershey kisses, he no hurt me or my kids so he gets a pass. My kids thought it was super cool.
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Saw this very near the Haw River today, moving very slow. My impression was that it had just swallowed a frog or something.Hawsnake.JPG
 
I have become amazed with snakes and joined a national Facebook group that identifies different snakes. I am blown away with the number of Rat snakes that are out there.
"Snake Identification" is the group.
Now I think that I would like to have a couple of the "good" snakes around to keep down the rodent population. And from what I am seeing, King snakes are next to impossible to find.
 
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KnotRight said:
Now I think that I would like to have a couple of the "good" snakes around to keep down the rodent population. And from what I am seeing, King snakes are next to impossible to find.
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King snakes are not rare but you’ll likely only see one per couple acres of land since they’re pretty much solitary and they’ll take on any other snake about their size or smaller. I try and keep one in the old shed to keep copperheads and mice under control and might see him 5 or 6 times a month sunning but after that I have no clue were he goes. He doesn’t come up to the house because his main food source (mice) is around the lower out buildings. If he does to good of a job he will move on looking for better hunting grounds and I’ll have to find another one ... grape vines are my favorite place to pick up one.
 
KnotRight said:
I have become amazed with snakes and joined a national Facebook group that identifies different snakes. I am blown away with the number of Rat snakes that are out there.
"Snake Identification" is the group.
Now I think that I would like to have a couple of the "good" snakes around to keep down the rodent population. And from what I am seeing, King snakes are next to impossible to find.
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Welcome to the club. They are awesome animals.
 
Took this out of one of the wife's flower gardens this morning.

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hp468 said:
Found another little brown snake in the shop the other day, we have a ton of them in my area.
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We used to have a good number of green snakes in the area but I've only seen one in the past 15-20 years.
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I found one of these brown snakes last night when the wife and I were coming back in the house after shooing the chickens into the coop for the night. Problem is, he was between the screen door and the entry door...
Mrs was not happy- I ended up pulling out the concrete steps (pre-form unit) and helping him get back into the yard.
I had been telling her all along, if she sees toads around the back porch it's ok, means there aren't any snakes...lol.
Not entirely sure she believes me anymore. ;)
 
Saw my first Eastern Rat snake of the season yesterday coming up out of the garden. Gently tried to coax him back the other way by picking him up with a 'magnet on a stick' but after about 3 minutes of my amateur herpatology routing, he started getting pissed. He struck at the 3 inch disk magnet pretty hard a few times and I guess he was like OK whatever, then finally went the way I wanted him to. Then my murderous 11lb black shorthair panther-cat came walking down the hill so I am not sure he made it or not but if so, he better watch out for her and the birds.
 
Oneofsix said:
I found one of these brown snakes last night when the wife and I were coming back in the house after shooing the chickens into the coop for the night. Problem is, he was between the screen door and the entry door...
Mrs was not happy- I ended up pulling out the concrete steps (pre-form unit) and helping him get back into the yard.
I had been telling her all along, if she sees toads around the back porch it's ok, means there aren't any snakes...lol.
Not entirely sure she believes me anymore. ;)
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These little guys don't get big enough to eat toads (12-15" long). They might eat the pea sized baby toads but they normally eat bugs/slugs/etc. They are extremely docile. Good critters to have around.
 
hp468 said:
These little guys don't get big enough to eat toads (12-15" long). They might eat the pea sized baby toads but they normally eat bugs/slugs/etc. They are extremely docile. Good critters to have around.
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I'm trying to get her to be watching for the ones that'll hurt her- strangely enough, when she found the green grass snake a few years ago, it was fascinating to her. But she'll freak out over a small green tree frog, all day long, lol.

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Oneofsix said:
I'm trying to get her to be watching for the ones that'll hurt her- strangely enough, when she found the green grass snake a few years ago, it was fascinating to her. But she'll freak out over a small green tree frog, all day long, lol.

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Mine would handle a Copper Head but freaks out about a Daddy Longleg spider. Go figure.
 
There are a couple of different water snooks in the area..... Brown Water snakes look similar to a water moccasin and the red water or northern water snakes look similar to a copperhead.
 
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BowWow said:
There are a couple of different water snooks in the area..... Brown Water snakes look similar to a water moccasin and the red water or northern water snakes look similar to a copperhead.
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Yea I questioned it for a minute as it swam towards me and my kids, but then just really didn't see the Hershey kisses or spade shaped head.
 
Love2shoot said:
Yea I questioned it for a minute as it swam towards me and my kids, but then just really didn't see the Hershey kisses or spade shaped head.
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http://herpsofnc.org/snakes/


I try to get folks to use This as a tool for identification and it’s a great learner if folks will take the time to look at it before screaming copperhead at everything with a pattern
 
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