So here's this lifelong city boy, living in the country now for about 5 years, doing the goats...chickens...ducks...etc. My wife is out of town visiting a grand daughter who broke an arm, and I've got the chore thing down. Got the goats fed and milked, rounded the chickens up, checked on the chicks (they're in a cage set inside the chicken coop), and saw they needed water.
The door to the cage opens in and up, and in order to get the water jug thing out, I opened the cage door and reached almost all the way to the back of the chick's cage. The chicks parted to reveal a HUGE snake coiled up at the end of my hand. Didn't know that I could move so fast.
Ran into the house, got the shotgun, ran back out, and it was still there. Hmmm, if I shoot it point blank, I might make a large hole in the coop. If I let it ease back down and out, I had no clear shot. Oh well, here goes.. I tried to line up the barrel at the thickest point of his body, and let lead fly.
Only bent the cage a little...didn't hurt the coop. It cut the snake in half, and it was still moving its body that was left attached to its head. It looked like a low budget horror movie. Now what to do? I was not about to pull it out bare handed..I could have, but I DID NOT want to. Hmm, went and got the shovel. I almost tore the cage up trying to get the snake out. I then realized why he was still in the cage. He was too full of baby chicks to crawl out of the cage.
After he was shot, the snake stuck his head through the cage, and made it almost impossible to get out. I finally managed to do it with the shovel. I threw him on the ground, and the half of his body hooked to the head didn't look very happy. I took the shovel and smushed his head in. After throwing him in the woods, I went to retrive the milk...but the chickens beat me to it. I don't think my wife will be upset too much about the lost milk, since she got to miss dealing with a huge chicken snake....about 3 1/2 feet long...3" diameter. I miss my wife. Later...
Hey Gary, you supposed to shoot the head. :o A 22 pistol loaded with rat shot will take out the snake without blowing a bunch of your chicks to smitherens.
If I had one...that would be the thing to do! All I'm good at is with a shovel or a shotgun, so I don't miss... :D
We should not be left alone! :D
Snakes have to make a living too ???.
Planguy,your going to have to get a shrink for those baby chicks first a snake then the roar of the shotgun,probibly will lay sour eggs.Frank C.
Boy am I glad I live in the cold north where we do not need to learn the best way to kill a snake.
Stonebroke
We tend to "react" when we see snakes, even "good" ones, but as WDH mentioned, snakes gotta eat too..... :)
We are gradually learning that even the "bad" ones serve a purpose. ;)
Quote from: Magicman on May 22, 2010, 09:33:33 AM
We tend to "react" when we see snakes, even "good" ones, but as WDH mentioned, snakes gotta eat too..... :)
We are gradually learning that even the "bad" ones serve a purpose. ;)
So far the purposes I've found they serve are "Fertilizer", "Turtle food", "Gator food", "Bird food" and "Fish food" , after I shoot them of course. I used to let the chicken snakes and King Snakes go. Now they all get it. The pests they may eat can be eaten by other things like birds - hawks,herons,egrets,etc.
This year is a great year for blackberries on our place. I found myself picking them with one hand and parting the blackberry brush down low with the tip of my 38 in the other hand. I know that feeling about reaching in and having a snake be on the other end.
Down here when the air smells like honeysuckle, that means it's snake season.
Planman ... You ever thought about getting some Guinea Hens? I've heard they're kind of a watchdog against snakes.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13926/944/Snake.jpg)
This is a Cottonmouth I popped earlier this year. I happened to have my 300 mag with me so he's missing his head. Big snake but not the biggest. My biggest I held by the tail over my head while his head rested on the ground. :o If that don't give you the heebie jeebies then probably not much will.
The snake in this picture had the big diamond head. Not something you want to run up on in the tall grass unprepared.
Well, actually, the worst of it is I built our house right next to our pond. It's full of mocassins. You can see them swimming across it...I've shot a few. After the barn project is done, it will be time to clear around the thing! But hey, we LOVE it here.
So I guess you don't go swimming in your farm ponds down South?
Stonebroke
Sure we do. The snakes don't dare bite a southern boy that's full of grits and shine. It kills the snake. :P
Quote from: stonebroke on May 22, 2010, 04:52:41 PM
So I guess you don't go swimming in your farm ponds down South?
Stonebroke
We used to swim in our pond. I guess last year was the first year we didn't. I've just seen too much going on in there. Haven't swam in any other body of water in Louisiana since I came here almost 9 years ago. Miss that part of living up North. But Like Planman says, their are things that make you love living here as well.
a few days ago it was cool at night and forcast rain for the next day so I fired up the free heat machine. A few hours later I went to add wood and laid one piece on the door lip and threw the second one in. picked up the first one and there he was, a snake on the door lip. Just a garder snake and small but man o man he was on a piece of firewood I carried cradled in my arm......on closer inspection I had chrushed him when I dropped the piece on the lip.... :o
Now I take the furnace poker, an old indutrial coal stove tool and pick him up to fling him into the woods and it curls around backwards from the flinging motion and flies threw the air and hits me in the face....ewe..... >:( thank god it was chrushed dead already.
I purchased some chain link fence and put it in the back of my old uhaul van ,when i started to pull it out of the van there is this large black snake ( a good snake) in the roll of wire, but I don't like any kind of snake.
My wife says ,do you want me to pull him out ( she doesn't mind them),I said sure. She grabed the tail and yanked it out and threw it ,yes you guessed right ,it came right at me ,I was moveing out of the way as fast as this old man could,she just laughed :D
This evening, a neighbor who has adopted me as her surrogate Father told me on the phone of her 7 year old son, Daniel. She and the Four boys were coming back from town when Daniel jumped from the back of the Van when she coming down her driveway. She parked the car and he came running up behind her. "Momma, Momma, look what I found!?!?"
He had a snake in his hands and it was about a foot long.
She said that she panicked and yelled "Daniel! That could be pygmy rattler or a Rattlesnake, or a Moccasin.... You can't just pick up snakes like that.
She said his face went from one of elation to total sadness and he screwed his face up as he began to cry. He gets his feelings hurt real easy.
It was a Garter snake and she told him so and also told him that he could keep it.
Well, one of the other boys has learned to use the camera on an old phone they used to use and he came in later to show her that they had made a movie. It's Daniel with the Snake.
I don't know if the link will work, but here it is. (http://www.facebook.com/hagafamfl#!/video/?id=1536677998)
If it doesn't work, I have it on my Facebook page. (http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=1536677998#!/profile.php?id=678988312)Maybe it will be accessible there.
New Zealand is totally snake free unless, of course, you count the politicians ;D
Can't sat that I really miss them. The snakes, I mean