Blue Racers!

We have red racers here. I often see them sunning themselves on the pavement. They are a very striking bright red color. I'd never seen anything like it till I moved here.

Speaking of rattlers. They are holding a rattlesnake avoidance clinic for dogs this weekend in a neighboring town. This is totally mental as far as I can tell. They are using 'defanged' rattlesnakes (the fangs will grow back)....even defanged they can sometimes deliver venom through a scratch. Anyhow the idea is to have the dogs be around the snakes and shock the begeezus out of the dogs if they get near the snake. Not my baby! I'm thinking this is animal cruelty. To the snakes and the dogs! They're charging $85 to attend.....and folks are lining up for it! It's a weird weird world.

They have just come out of hibernation and would have been dispersed if you hadn't killed them. We will have the same thing in a week or two, I take their pictures, and they go about their business until they assemble again in the fall.. I would rather have snakes than the rodents they feed on. Just because they give you the willys doesn't give you the right to kill them unless you intend to eat them.

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United states of America

Born July 4, 1776

Died November 4, 2008

Suicide

WHY kill a non-venomous snake, who if you'd allow to live, would keep down rodent populations, thus preventing disease, keeping them out of your feed and garden, and even deter other, venomous varieties?
Especially with how precarious many populations are, just a big in my book.

Hmmm........... I catch them and then carry them (by hand) in the house to show my wife. After she's done admiring them I release them further out from the house (we don't have poisonious snakes up here, or if we do I'll find out the hard way! LOL)

Daddy kept a black snake in the house when I was younger. Every winter the rats and mice would make a pilgramage from the fields to our walls. Pop caught a black snake on the road one spring and put it in our house. Viola! No rats!

Granted, watching the thing slither across the mantle while watching Fred Kirby's Cartoon Corral was a little disconcerting... I got used to it after a while.

Seeing your location as the UP I was reminded of living there. We moved a lot when I was a kid and I still remember living near a small town called Little Lake MI. It was snake heaven. In one afternoon a group of us caught 50+ snakes of all kinds. It was great! I even found some snake eggs hatching in a railroad bed. There was tons of blueberries and since I didn't like to pick all I had to do was flip over a few logs until I found a snake and show Mom. We're done! Get in the car kids.

I've always wanted to go back but I'm afraid it would be depressing to see that all the habitat has been consumed by development.

I have 80 acres. The house and "compound" occupy 5. Snakes are welcome on the 75, killed on sight on the 5. I have 4 cats that keep the rodents under control. There are plenty of snakes in the world, they are not welcome around the house. It must work becuase we the only ones we see are small ones the cats kill. There is a copperhead, and a pretty good sized one, that occupies our creek at the ATV crossing. We don't bother him cause he is out on the 75.

If you were to lose a beloved dog to snakebite you would be singing a different song. The shock treatment for snake training dogs is very effective. If I kill a snake I always whip my dogs with it and make them scared of it. It helps to teach them to leave snakes alone. The shock treatment is however more effective.

I think I'd rather have blue ones than black ones, at least sometimes. One of the more common snakes on our place is the Eastern Coachwhip. The first one I saw was at least 8 feet long. They can move very fast, and will avoid you when they can. But don't corner one - they can be quite aggressive. They're not poisonous, but when they strike, they aim for your face.

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Society has gotten to the point where everybody has a right, but nobody has a responsibility.

I love 'em and I would never kill one. NEVER. If you have a good crop of racers, you will not be troubled with mice and rats much. They also eat garden pest bugs as snacks. Good snakes that are not doing anything directly harmful should not be killed just because someone must act out their traumas. Sorry.

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Jim Steele
Sweetpea Farms
"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." -- Robert Gates

You sound just like my husband! Here he is with the smaller rat snake who hangs around my hen nests (I convinced him to step out onto the porch for the photo):

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I'm running so far behind I thought I was first!

http://hickahala.blogspot.com/

Hey, I think he and I would get along great! Cool snake too!

I am not a religious woman, but if you asked me to list things I think are sinful, killing harmless snakes would be near the top of the list. Why on earth would you kill something just because it frightens you? I could understand killing a snake that was lingering near the heavy traffic area of your yard if you mistook it for a venomous one, but you already know that these snakes are harmless. So they startle you once in awhile...what's wrong with that. I would focus my attention on learning to live in harmony with the nature around me, not on waging war on the wildlife.

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"Perhaps I'll have them string a clothesline from the hearse I am in, with my underwear waving in the breeze, as we drive to the cemetary. People worry about the dumbest things!"
by Wendy

There was a blue racer that lived in my garden for awhile. I used tin panels as walkways and he lived underneath. Occasionally we'd cross paths and I was always surprised when he would posture by "rattling" his tail. Never knew they did this. Anyway, we got use to each other and got along just fine. Frankly it was a neat relationship.

Saw a nice king snake just the other day...figure if the good snakes are around the bad snakes are probably not.

I can sympathize a bit with snake killers. After all I am not above smashing the guts out of a spider or two just because they are in my house. I will admit that I love teaching children that snakes are not your enemy (except the poisonous ones) and then watching the kids handling snakes they were terrified of touching just moments earlier. I have a neighbor who is absolutely terrified of snakes and kills every one she sees. Her dd is one of my former "students". The dd loves snakes now. Even catches them to bring to me for identification occasionally.

If killing a harmless nonpoisonous snake was'nt bad enough, you then beat your dog with it. If your dog could talk he probably would say he's more afraid of you than the snake.

I would agree. The dog probably wonders why he's getting whipped and fears the owner.

I was overrun with fieldmice in the house one year. Simple solution was to lay an old sheet of plywood in some tall grass at the edge of the yard. I checked under it about a week later and found a copperhead had taken up residence. He got moved. After another week I checked again and found a black racer had moved in. In another week the field mice were gone. Later in the year I got curious and checked under the plywood again and she was still there along with lots of babies. Killing beneficial snakes is like cutting the handles off of good tools.

Doug

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I Rule My World!...Tonya said I could.

Lynette - I'm here in Michigan too and only this past week or so have we started seeing the racers, I keep finding them in the middle of the road trying to warm up on the asphalt. I think Maggie was right and it's just now getting warm enough for them to venture out. We have tons of blue racers here in our area, last year we came across one that was close to four feet, actually pretty cool. I'm the snake lover of our family...my dh is totally freaked out by them and screams for me whenever he comes across one. Anyway, I find that the racers are pretty shy snakes and are easy to chase off...and they do go away fast. They are doing you a service by being around, just scare them off when you come across one in your space, no need to kill them.

Tami ~ Heritage Corner Poultry

I live in South Florida and there are snakes here a-plenty. Most are totally harmless. I really enjoy seenig them around the yard. The one to watch for here are the pygmy rattlers which are rather small, venemous and aggressive. Coral snakes are very passive and rarely seen. one day my husband showed me the teeniest snake I ever saw. It was a baby ringneck not even 4" long and as thin as a piece of yarn. I managed to take a picture of it and if I knew how to post it I would.

Long live snakes~
Jo