Snake control

And what give birds priority over cats?

The Circle of Life.

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Apocalyptic and Survival Fiction - Readers and writers welcome

Thanks. I have Elton John singing in my head now

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" It's better to ride even if you get thrown, than to wind up just wishin' ya had."

Chris Ledoux

That a mamba?

Whatevs. The fact remains that you said there wasn't a vaccine for snakebite and there actually is. You were wrong.

We get several snakes a wk here. Usually 5ft plus bull snakes, but they are always eating eggs & killing chicks. We use loppers to take them out of nesting boxes & brooders. Have you tried minnow traps? The snakes go in but can't come out. We catch lots of snakes in deer netting. Just drape it in areas the snakes travel, they get all tangled up & die.

Gettem sister Lisa! =)

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'Waiting for the Great Leap Forward'

Not here.

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

You're correct in that I was IGNORANT of the fact there is one now beng marketed (as you yourself were until you researched)

I'll rephrase it to there is no PROVEN vaccine for snakebites since there is conflicting data on it's effectiveness, with most of the "postive" testimony comng from the seller's site.

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

You were wrong. Suck it up.
And you're right, I looked it up. I didn't come onto the thread braying that there wasn't one, and them trying to weasel out of being wrong by questioning the vaccine's efficacy.
NO vaccine is 100 percent effective. There is in fact a snakebite vaccine. You said there wasn't so you are wrong. Get out the big boy pants.

Pigs kill snakes and are really effective, however they do dig them out so they will make a big mess.

Um, her beloved pet is dead.

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I saw something nasty in the woodshed

I didn't "bray" and I didn't "weasel" nor "question" anything
I posted valid information about the vaccine without making any further comments.

But as always though, you try to make it personal instead of simply sticking to the topic.
You even managed to slip in a little namecalling, even with the edit.

Who's REALLY acting childish here?

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

Dang, I tell ya Bear... you don't allot yourself one single board to be a donkey on, you prefer to spread your message faaaaar and wiiiiide...

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'Waiting for the Great Leap Forward'

There's an ignore feature here.
You're not forced to read anything at all, and it makes no difference to me

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

And who was wrong?

Options are out there, but none are completely effective. We have lived with rattlesnakes for 40 years, so I can speak with a bit of authority on the subject, but nobody knows it all. Even with no rodents or cover around to speak of, one warm evening a big old fat bull rattler will decide to drop by and curl himself around a cool water tank right outside you door or see if he can make it up your dryer vent when he's a bit chilly. OR some old sow will give birth to a litter in your rose bush and you will be killing night crawler size snakes arund the place until you get them all. No rattles on the tiny ones, by the way, but very strong venom.

It's correct that they don't usually bite unless antagonised, but they get antagonised pretty easy. If you keep walking back and forth past thier "home bush" every few minutes, they can get very aggressive, or if you trap them in a building. Inadvertantly stepping on one is the pits. AND they are, like, hard to see?

Best to not have them around, for most of us. We kill every rattlesnake we see in the living or work areas around our home and business. We really can't git rid of the stacks of wood we use in our business, and can't stop digging around in them, so we have to reduce the odds of getting bitten. likewise loose hay, they love that in the fall, as a blanket.

The more rucus that's going on in an area, the less likely they are to remain there, and we went from killing one a day when we first occupied the house we bought to killing only a few per year recently.

My version of homesteading requires that we make choices, each of us, about the animal life that dwells on our places. We keep a large and varying herd of barn cats. We don't name them or make good friends with them. Not only do they kill rats, mice, pocket gophers, and, yes, once in a while a bird, but some of them are quite good at killing small rattlesnakes.

If you decide to kill them instead of reason with them or ignore them, carry the means to do so with you. If you get one stirred up and then go looking for a hoe, he'll be gone when you get back, and still around to worry you.

Sorry for such a long first post. Just trying to be helpful....Joe

We've only been here on this property just over a year, but our neighbor who has been here for years told us he'd never seen a rattler. We killed two smallish ones last year, one in our front yard and one at the entrance to our garden, so we were really surprised.

Another neighbor said they usually keep to the rocks out in the high desert around us, but unfortunately they are doing major highway construction fairly close to us and she thinks that's driving them our way.

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@Joe ~ You are very well spoken! I am glad to have been able to've read your first post on HT =)

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'Waiting for the Great Leap Forward'

Both of us, but I admitted it in Post # 48.
Who's still being childish?

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

The cats are an introduced unregulated PEST, most of the birds are native.

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it's not a sport unless the animal can kill you back

be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet