How to KILL snakes???
 

On the homestead, every day is school day because unexpected things happen and you have to create as you go.
When snakes get in your cages and eat your baby rabbits or birds, how do you kill the snakes?? Is there a best poison spray to keep around?
Yesterday, I had a major disaster with several young birds I have been keeping in cages by my back deck. I thought they were safe from raccoons because I had barricaded them with more cages and left my german shepherd tied out near them all night. But something was mysteriously killing them without leaving a mark on them at the rate of two a night.
Yesterday morning when I came out, one cage that formerly contained a young rooster and a quail had a dead rooster and a black snake with a big bulge in it, the poor quail!

I never thought about something crawling under my deck! If it was that particular snake, it killed seven birds, three quail, a duck and three chickens. Oh, I was upset!

What a problem thinking how to kill the snake! First I got my .22 pistol and called my friend who hunts my land but he couldn't come. He warned me about ricochet, especially as I don't know about handling my gun to begin with. I had heard you can spray snakes with a fire extinguisher which will chill them so they are immobile and easy to kill but my extinguisher trigger was broken. Then I pulled a big rubbermaid tub over and dropped the cage in it which stuck up too high to put the cover on. I thought maybe I could drown the snake but that was an impractical option. As an assassin I was feeling a failure but I couldn't let that nasty thing go knowing he'd be back for more.

I laid out my garden clippers and a fishing net. I looked high and low for oven cleaners, lye, drain cleaners, wasp spray but this is a poison free home.

As I rushed back and forth, the snake was coiled and watching. It was so shiny and powerful looking. So long and yet so thin. I'm sure it was my imagination but the head definitely looked like a triangular poisonous shape. A small head, though. I couldn't imagine how it could swallow a jumbo quail! I didn't think it could get out through the wires with the quail bulging its sides but it looked smarter than me and was NOT sleeping to digest its ill gotten meal.

Finally I discovered some charcoal lighter fuel. I squirted the snake's eyes. It shot out of the cage and I clipped it behind the head with my garden clippers which locked. I got my other clippers and crunched its head in half. What a fierce battle. It thrashed the orange-handled clippers back and forth against the sides of the blue rubbermaid tub. It tried to draw its body through the cage wires but couldn't get past the birdy bulge. I didn't know whether to scream or swoon. My dogs thought it was wonderful fun!
How do YOU kill your killer snakes? (In or out of cages)

I have to say your story hit so close to home! My DH is a city boy, and although I grew up having horses in the country my dad was the designated snake killer. When we found our first copperhead in the pasture we also had no idea how to kill it. We ended up throwing a cinder block at it, LOL! I wish someone had got the two of us on video dancing around squealing trying to kill that snake! Eventually something snapped into my head and I remembered the shovel. We grabbed the shovel and mercifully choppped the injured snake in half.

Now I use a flat shovel (easier to aim than a shovel with the pointed end), and I have one that is designated for snake killing so it stays sharp. We have been having a real problem with copperheads, though (I have a thread about it on here), so I am thinking about a gun with snakeshot or something.

Next time it will go more smoothly, although I hope there will not be a next time for you!

If your pistol is a revolver, you can use shot shells
They will also work in bolt action rifles, but don't do so well in semi autos


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Sorry to hear abut your babies. The best thing to do is snake proof your cages. Keep the area around your house and cages clean & free from debris. Snakes eat mice and other things you probably have around your cages. I'd rather spend a little more time fixing the bottom-line problem than be overrun with mice.

Never kill snakes unless they're poisonous. Before I learned, I killed rattlers with a shovel.

Good advice Wolf Mom

We use to pick them up by the tail and pop them like a bullwhip. Now I just throw them down through the woods though, no real reason to kill them. Its in their nature to eat eggs, rabbits, chicks, etc. If you're real icky about touching them, maybe one of those extension fruit picker type things. I'm not so sure about firing a gun in an enclosed or tight space. I was in a car with a guy who shot a large caliber revolver and my ears rang for days.

I use the .22. Don't try to hit the head. Do a gut shot and blow a hole in the thing. They don't live long after that. If it is coiled, even better cause you can make several holes with one shot.

If you are absolutely sure it is non-poisonous, long handled limb loppers can be used to take the head off. You really do need to get used to your gun and do some target practice.

The copperhead that got into my bedroom a couple years ago succumbed to the .22, BTW.

Most of my snake experience has been in Montana with rattlesnakes, we didn't have any other poisonous snakes and we never killed anything except them. I've killed snakes with a hoe and I used to carry a .38 revolver with shot shells with me riding. Both work well ... I've used rocks if I didn't have a gun but you don't always find enough of them.

NO NO NO I have lived and dealing with snakes and a pistol or rifle unless it is in your hands when you see the snake you are going to make a mistake.
If you see a snake keep your eyes on the snake then what you need is something like a fishing pole. By keeping the snake in view you are keeping your self safe when you as you are monitoring the snake you get a switch or something limber now you have your weapon. Whip it behind the head and if you hit it right it will straighten out like it was stretched. If not whip it again.
Bullets bounce and a switch doesn't.

We always used the knotted end of a lariat.

i am happy i'm not the only one who will leave a non poison snake alone. i see many in our area, don't matter what kind, they kill it, then whine about mice!! i've had many rattler encounters, and often use a 9mmauto with birdshot type bullets. i've also used rocks and sticks. a hoe is good too.

sfm's post coulda been from me!

I haven't seen a snake in 2 years. That is a pleasant side benefit of adopting a little terrier.

use raid wasp and hornet and spray it on the head and in the eyes I have been told that will kill them

kill a snake
 

I would have loved to see this on a T.V> It is almost funny, but not funny. I hate snakes of all kind. My son use to try to run me around the house with a green snake. It worked! I ran.

That's why you use shotshells instead of solid projectiles

Use a stick or a garden hoe.

I remember a number of years ago while living in AZ. I was working on a Andalusian horse farm at the time.
The owner was trying to shoot a 5 foot diamondback with her pistol, but she kept missing.
I went out, grabbed the only gun I had with me which was my deer hunting 30/30.
I steeped outside told her to get in the barn and call her dog in there with her.
I squatted down used to open sites and squeezed off a shot and nearly blew the bugger in half~! I still have the rattles to this day~!

Fishing poles are a little difficult to carry horseback. Riding, moving cattle or checking cattle/fences/water is when I carried the .38 revolver, loaded with shot shells.

I never, ever carried a lariat. I am an absolute danger to myself with a rope, have no idea why, but I cannot take one down without it acting like a coil of wire and getting myself entangled with it.

The absolute last time I ever tried to practice/use a lariat, I was about 14 years old and "getting my horse used to a rope". In the corral, on the mare, with the saddle, practicing "roping" one of the fence posts.

After at least a dozen misses (with the rope pretty thoroughly tangled) I threw the loop in disgust for the last time ... managed to CATCH the darned fence post as I flipped the slack ... which popped the mare on the rump.

She promptly left the scene, which wouldn't have been a disaster except I'd also managed to get a half-hitch around the saddlehorn in all this scramble. Got to the end of the rope. Mare keeps going. Rope and fence post hold. Cinch does not.

Roping session ends with mare at the far end of the corral facing me with a thoroughly puzzled expression ... as I am sitting, still in the saddle ... with the solidly caught fence post still half-hitched to the saddlehorn ... in the middle of the corral. :censored:

I never carried a lariat horseback again.

I, too, am one who prefer to leave non-poisonous snakes alone. We do snake proof our brooder pen (utility wire, closed rafter ends & wire top) as we do not want the black snakes we have taking what we want to put in our freezer.

We have had 2 encounters with copperheads. The one coming down our graveled drive got its head chopped off with a hoe. The 2 grown (looked like a pair) found during cold weather under the chicken house door trying to get in with the baby chicks who were under a heat lamp got pulled out one by one by the tail and their heads cut off with a shovel (shovel better than spade for this if your aim is as bad as mine). David killed all 3 of those and we have not seen any since. We do have many black snakes.

Black snakes can get thru rabbit wire and chicken wire, eat eggs or kill in there and then not be able to get out because of the bulge. That says if the cage had smaller holes they would not get in to begin with. Not knowing how your cages for quail, etc. are, I would suggest you make sure all wire is "utility" wire with those tiny holes. It is really better to stop the black snakes from taking what you want to keep rather than kill them.

Only seen one out here........
 

A few years ago, I was mowing the bottom, with the DR brushmower. A copperhead snake came out from under the back of the mower, between the handles. I let go & flipped theblade clutch, mistake. If I'd just let go it woulda shut down. But I left it sitting there with the engine running.

That copperhead snake was just laying there, between me and the mower handles. I shot him back of the head, with a 110 gr. HJ lead hollowpoint. It blew him nearly in two. I took a stick & moved him. Then I finished mowing.
That's the only snake, I've seen here, outside of little bitty ones.

What type of .22 pistol it is that you have and don't know how to handle? I see the first step clearly. If it's a revolver once you learn how to handle it get some shot shells for it.

I, Like others would Have loved to see you "in Action" LOL. Sounds like you were having a time. The way I would kill one in a cage or in the chicken egg nest is get out my knife, reach in real quick, grab it behind the head, pull it out and lay it on the dirt-----well to spare the details it becomes head-less. Works every time!! Now if it was on the dirt or laying out where I can get to it----I get a hoe, limb, whatever is available.

I have tons of snakes where I live. Since I am a "new country boy" (moved here from Miami, FL 2 years ago) I use a .44 cal pistol loaded with 410 gauge shot gun shells. 100% of the snakes I go after (just copperheads and rattlers) point and >BANG< -- dead.

My neighbor who was born and raised here uses anything in his hand, I watched him kill both a copperhead and a rattler using a hammer last week. I do not like to get that close, snakes still scare me (alot)...

I'm 59 years old and have killed only two snakes in my life. Both times were a mistake and I regret doing it. The first snake was killed by me and a neighbor girl. This place was just being developed and had dirt roads. A small rattlesnake (two foot or so) was at the edge of the road and my friend insisted we should kill it. We beat it to death with sticks.

The second snake I killed was when I was in Georgia and some kind of snake (rat) got in the chicken coop. The coop wasn't secure against snakes. I relocated the first snake about a mile away. When I found the second one I couldn't take it. It was taking food from my belly. A part time job making $80 a week and barely able to pay for gas (10 mile trip to work, not back, 8 cylinder pick up truck, gas prices high) and vehicle insurance and the cost of food, didn't put me in a good mood. I caught him by the tail. When he doubled back to bite me I lost it and started swinging him against the side of the coop.

With the first snake I was an ignorant nine year old girl. With the second one, I was close to starving. I went from 123 pounds down to 105. I'm 5' 8". I needed every bit of food I could get. I didn't think sharing my little bit of food with the snake would benefit me. I regret killing that snake more than killing the first. I was too upset to think straight and catch it by the neck to relocate it.

Rattle snakes are laid back and pretty much harmless as long as you give them their space. They don't want to use their venom for anything other than food or self defense. They don't frighten me. I just let them go on their way and we're both happy.

Rat snakes strike only out of self defense. I've picked them up and put them back where they were. I once found a three foot yellow rat (corn) snake in my back yard. I picked it up to admire it. A friend, Billy, was visiting and his nephew was with him. Billy just had to be an antagonizer. He cuffed the snake on the side of the head and told his nephew to pet it. The snake didn't go into a self defense mode against me, but did when the nephew or he tried to touch it.

Copperheads would rather avoid you than have a confrontation. Like rattlesnakes they try to conserve their venom for food, not self defense. Between the ages of 9 and 11 a friend and I would go wading at the edge of a pond trying to catch small fish in a net. A copperhead would swim underwater not more than 10 to 12 inches past our ankles and keep going. We just stood still until they swam at least 10 foot away They never bothered us.

For those of you in Coral snake country, they'll try to bite you if you pick them up. They inject poison by chewing on soft folds of skin or the outside skin on your body that they can get their teeth to fit around. They have no fangs. They don't move fast and have jerky movements when they try to move. They're the easiest to catch. The last one I caught was being displaced by a new subdivision being built. The snake was going over a parking lot of the once 20 acres, that used to be pasture, from a one acre parcel that had just been developed. That snake had to have been there from the time I had a horse pastured there when I was 19. It was 39" long. At the time the record Coral snake length was 45" long. I caught it and took it Sarasota Jungle Gardens and gave it to the herpetologist that worked there. Before I turned it over to him I asked him what he did with Coral snakes if they didn't eat for a month. He told me he took them east and turned them loose. I let him have it. A 39" Coral is worthy of sharing with others if the snake does well in captivity.

Water moccasins and cotton mouths are a whole 'nother ball game. They go after you just because they are nasty tempered and very protective of their territory. I've always avoided them. They're mean cusses and like to argue for no reason. I've never been in a stand off situation with one of them.

As has been suggested, snake proof your pens, clean up places where snakes can, and will hide, and you shouldn't have a problem unless it's an area you can't control. If snakes can't find shelter or food they won't hang around.

To answer your question about how to kill snakes, if at all possible, don't. I know circumstances don't always warrant co-existing with them and you have to do what you have to do.

What Fla Gal said. They're beneficial, would generally rather avoid you (except water moccasins, ditto that).

Learn your poisonous snakes. Learn what the bite of a venomous snakes looks like vs. that of a nonvenomous (save yourself some panic should you ever be bitten).

We have so few reptiles/amphibians here anymore; seems fireants have taken their toll in a big way. :(

I totally agree!

Thank you all for your wonderfully interesting replies! Oh, gee, all my city friends scream like banshees that I am so bad and wrong to kill the snakes, the poor little nature's creatures! Not you guys, too!!!

I am perfectly happy to leave all snakes alone out around my property to eat rats, mice and/or each other, but when they get in my cages (these were rabbit cages with what I thought was perfectly protective small-spaced wire), and eat my critters, vengeance is mine!!!! I have had my land 18 years and lost more birds lately and since last fall than in all the other years together. It has been AWFUL! Was it the big snow? All the clear cutting for new subdivisions being built? I don't know. Anyway, my logic is that once these killer snakes have figured out how to get into one of my cages, they will return but not if I derail them! I use my garden clippers (loppers) but I am mortally afraid of snakes. I am NOT going to put a hand in the cage as some recommended. I want to spray them with something to get them to stick their heads out and then I'll fiendishly make the lethal crunch! But if they are too quick for me (a very likely possibility), then I want to be able to douse them with something horrible awful terrible so they die later. A kind suggestion has been made as to Raid wasp and hornet spray. I remember that wasp spray was recommended for personal protection on here, so I'm gonna get some tonight! Unless somebody recommends something even more lethal and easily procurable.

Beeman, you asked "What type of .22 pistol it is that you have and don't know how to handle?" ha ha it is a teensy cute little pistol I bought at a pawn shop and then researched on the internet and was dismayed to discover that it only likes one special kind of bullet and has a propensity for blowing up! Yikes! This was very unnerving information! I actually took it and the bullets out to try to blow away the snake but my pal Timmy advised that if the bullet hit a rock, who would take care of my dogs? "I see the first step clearly." Yes, Beeman, me, too. I gotta learn to handle my new gun or swap it off to somebody better than me!
Beeman also said, "If it's a revolver once you learn how to handle it get some shot shells for it." Actually, I posted about this gun thing before. I had a good .38 and had snake shot for it. Over the years, I gave several (poison) snakes flying lessons. But now I am getting old and feeble and wasn't able to pull the slide back to cock it. Didn't seem much point in keeping a gun I couldn't use any more so I gave it to the guy who hunts my land, a very good guy!
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions for how to kill (BAD) snakes!
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Sorry to be the nay-sayer but if snakes are getting into your cages you need to reinforce the cages. If the snakes can't get in, they can't eat your critters and come back for more. If you think killing the snakes will cure the problem.... I don't think so... just saying...

Never killed a snake. Probably would use a shovel tho. 2 times I've killed rats with a pitch fork, my poor little brother was traumatized, 2nd time my dh (before we were married) thought I was a ruthless #%*^*. Just don't like rats. Wrung a chickens neck the other day-she got caught with egg on her face.... Snakes tho, good grief don't let dh see one, I'll be practicing CPR.

Most all of my outbuildings are wood or tin... never ever had a bullet "bounce". I'll take a head shot if possible, body if not. If it's a rattler, I'll capturate it and relocate. Copperheads are iffy, and usually are dispatched. 'Chicken snakes' are too dang fast, and you only have a second... so they're usually dispatched. I'll give a varmint a chance, but only to be caught... not a chance to commit the same offense twice.

I just get the trusty old bow and arrows. I've split many water moccasins in half when they've gone after my goats (yes, you're reading that right; they've gone after my 175+LB Sannen diary goats). There again, I'm very medieval.

I hear you there! I don't even eat meat, but once the first copperhead we saw bit my horse on the nose and we had to rush him to the 24 hour emergency clinic at midnight, those #$%@ have to DIE! That was all it took to send me into Mama Bear mode, and now any venomous snake will die on sight if I have anything to say about it. I do let the non-venomous go along their way, but I don't have chickens or rabbits to worry about or it might be a different story.

Your neighbor sounds like my hubby. Don will kill a cottonmouth with whatever is close at hand. One time he killed one at the barn with a screwdriver. This one he killed with a rotten stick. Said it kept breaking on him, but he was determined to kill the cottonmouth before it bit one of the dogs.

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I have heard of people eating Rattlesnakes out west and people eating black snakes around here. I wonder if WM are tasty?

WOW that is a mean looking cotton mouth! I've only seen one in this area and that was over 6 yrs ago; but I would not hesitate at all to kill that one.

With a rotten stick???

One of the five foods you never want to eat. Like a bicycle tire that's been marinated for six weeks under the seat in an outhouse and then dipped in rotten tuna.

I've eaten snake, although not rattlesnake. Actually did taste a little like chicken, or rabbit, but lots of fine fussy bones, like a long small fish. I won't hesitate to do it again if there are no rabid conservationists looking over my shoulder.
I suspect, like many other things, snake will take on the taste of what it's been eating, so Ernie's experience may have been with a snake that had been feeding on outhouse rats, or on something that had been eating carrion.

Just a note on killing with a shovel: it works well if you've got the room to do it, but don't use the tip of the blade, stabbing like digging a hole, if you can help it - only if they're backed into a corner. You get too close to them that way, and they can strike a long way if they're coiled up.
Instead, use the side of the blade (chop, like a big axe) or the back of the blade (thump, like a flat club) - much more chance to hit, and you can stand a lot further away. Try not to cut them clean in two. It gets scary if the angry front half of a snake comes after you, believe me. What you want to do is break their back, so they're somewhat immobilised by having to drag something they no longer have control over.
Another effective tool is the back of a garden rake. I prefer the shovel though, because you can stand off to the side, which is safer; whereas with the rake you need to be in front or behind, and they can strike at you there.

Oh, yes - a shotgun is very effective. However, think carefully about what other damage it might do. We used one on a snake that had gotten in with a litter of young kittens. Aimed carefully, got the snake and only the snake - cut him in two, which is where I met the angry front half of the snake. However, the kittens all died over a few hours from the after-effects of the blast.

I like a hoe. It gives you reach and a relatively sharp edge. I prefer a shotgun but it isn't always practical and am looking for a Taurus Judge for everyday carry around my place. At least until we've been there long enough to clear the snakes out away from the trailer.