From Priclky Pear to RATTLESNAKES...

There's your answer if I understand what you describe, the snakes come from the surrounding habitat and are exploring and dispersing from it looking for food, shade, water, etc.
I've heard this also, or something close, and it may be a national statistic. Might include "biker colors" and/or tattoos in some areas. lol. "Natural selection in action"? However, I think that it's likely that a lot more than 25% of bites are from just stepping too close before seeing the critter, or of kids. Perhaps the quoted statistic would hold for bites on hands and arms? Note I said "an hour OR MORE", and I'd not mess with any mangled/dead viper, head attached to body or not, without using extreme caution about the business end.

Creep Alert! We had shot a rattler and DH had removed the head. Sounds safe right? Well, DH was going to remove the rattles, and when he started to cut it, the body struck! Thank goodness the head was gone! Poor DH almost broke his neck getting away from the snake! I couldn't stop laughing! On a good note it is raining out here today!!!!

We place them along our foundation at each end of the house. Snakes like most critters will run into the foundation and then cruise along it. An
d they like tunnels and holes.

Yikes Chief Cook! That's scary...and funny - after the fact. Your poor husband. More good info to have. I'm finding all this rattlesnake informatiin quite fascinating and creepy at the same time.

Glad to hear you are getting rain!! Here too.

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Dryheat - But let's assume the foundation is sealed up tight with no way in - where are they continuously coming from? Simple reproduction?

I see what you and Alaska are saying if they have a easy access to get under the house any time. That may be the case, in which I'll have to put some effort into correcting that. I can deal with those "out there", it's just the endless supply under my house I want to erradicate for now.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

ETA: the alcohol and age range did not apply in my husbands case. I too think the statistic is a bit overstated, however funny.

Think, then what would their *food* be? Probably rodents, which would be constantly digging burrows, using cracks and gaps in foundation areas as extensions of tunnel systems to the outside. Rats chew through wood and plastic and I'm pretty sure, concrete and plaster. Snakes follow rat burrows looking for easy meals from nests of young rodents. I think it's considered a more usual behavior for snakes like rattlers to migrate over some distance to a historic den, then come out in the spring and disperse away quite a distance doing their mating and feeding as they go. I doubt anyone could be sure, though, that especially sub-adult rattlers wouldn't just hang around an area with a food source, occasional water, shade, and a lack of predators. That could fit a basement/ foundation area pretty well. Note you wouldn't have to have poorly-stored grain or whatever (although rodents, as everyone can vouch, are geniuses at finding and gnawing into stored food) to have a constant re-invasion of your foundation area; they eat grass seed, cacti, mesquite beans, stuff like that, constantly. Think an ongoing process of sun-> mesquite beans-> rats & rabbits-> rattlesnakes. In a rural area, all you can do is keep chipping away at that process where it's impacting your living space. Keep grass and cacti cleared away, rake mesquite seed pods up before rodents store them as a constant food supply. Maintain pets that kill rodents, set traps constantly, keep inspecting for new gaps that need sealing. Poison? Exterminator? Can some underground gaps in rocky layers be sealed up all around the periphery of your house? (Talking big expense there, I'm sure, and maybe not the problem.)

Looking back at the original "cactus" thread. Hm, so the house has been unoccupied for 30 years and is part of 1000 acres of scrub range? Well, I suppose critters have had quite a while to dig tunnels around the foundations. Even if unheated, the house structure would moderate winter cold a lot and some snakes could have found it all very similar to a natural established den. I would say, any process of "sealing" the foundation by going around the exterior edges wouldn't have done diddly. You're surrounded by habitat that supports critters, including rattlers, that homesteaders will find unpleasant in many ways. You need to clear a periphery around the house and keep up a constant defensive process, I'd say. Closing off any underground burrow system would be top priority, I'd think, but the area looks very rocky from those photos so I don't quite know how you could really *do* that as a practical matter. You're facing a time-consuming constant battle, terriers and barn cats will get bitten and require treatment, the surrounding scrub will forever support rodents that support rattlers that will occasionally wander into the house area. Putting up hardware cloth- mesh size fencing around your residence perimeter might help a lot once any tunnel network has been closed off, but that would be expensive. You'll need to develop a new personal behavior pattern, not *fearful* but sensibly *alert* to danger as you walk in the area, unless you get to a stage where you aren't seeing rattlers very often. Right now in the spring may be much, much worse for encountering them than otherwise, too.

Thank you DryHeat. Really.

That is a most thoughtful reply to my endless questions. You took the time to apply your knowledge to my personal situation. That's going above and beyond. Very much appreciate it.

You gave me so much to think about. I have a better understanding of how the rodents are surviving or thriving there. And their role in everything from them providing passage for the snakes, to being a food source for them as well. IDK, it all suddenly clicked - maybe my brain is just working better today.

We have plans to start clearing the land of cactus and some mesquite - starting with a perimeter around the house. Thanks to all who gave advice on how to accompolish this. I don't mind hard work and the upkeep, but I don't want to feel like I'm at war everyday with the resident herps. Living cautiously is one thing, fear and defeat are exhausting. Perhaps inhabiting this house isn't realistic for us?!? It seems as though my problems aren't as simple as prickly pear & rattlesnakes.

I think I really need to visit with the local Ag Services. If I understand correctly, they will do on site visits and assist with a long range plan.

Again, thank you so much for your thoughtful replies.

WE have knocked the numbers down significantly here. Each year we cut back the brush a little more around the compound(house). Im sure just our presence has scared some away
WE always have several guns ready loaded with snake loads. On our property the only good rattle snake is a dead one. The traps catch mostly the little ones that are harder to see but are just as deadly.
The cats also help as they keep the rodent population in check. WE have lost a cat recently to a snake bite and several have just disappeared, bobcats, owls and other varmints are hard on the cats.
Also had a calf bit last year. After a shot from the vet he has done fine.
Some may argue but I believe I am back to normal after my bite.
Its a cruel countryside out there. But we love it!

Alaska -

Thanks for the encouragement.

I've never said it before, but you are so right - it's a cruel countryside out there. I too LOVE it - so we must learn how to get all this under control so we can enjoy it - not fear it.

I appreciate you sharing your hands-on knowledge and skills.

Glad you are back to normal after your bite. Have to take your word on that.

Let me ask you something Ive always wondered about, How do you camp in that country WITHOUT waking up with snakes and scorpions in bed with you?

Ha ha, maybe if you go camping after a controlled burn! Then you get a few weeks off!

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Sincerely,

Shin

Inspirational Quotes from the Saints, Books & Floral Calendar

I have camped more than most can imagine. But I think I wiull pass on camping in this part of the country.

Don't sleep on the ground without a tent that you can zip closed. Personally, I prefer to either sleep in my truck camper or in a hammock. Snakes are only one thing to worry about when sleeping on the ground. There are scorpions, spiders and ants, too.

I have caught snakes all my life since I was a kid in the 70's. I can tell you snakes don't chase people, they simply don't have the brains to know which direction to run, or even know what you are. If one is coming at you it likely mistakes you for something to climb up to get away.

I'll never forget the looks of the adults around my neighborhood when came walking down the street with the latest 6ft snake I caught, used to keep em for the summer as a kid in cages and fatten them up and turn them loose in fall.

Racers are often very aggressive, about the only type of snake I couldn't tame as a kid.

Same here, I have no problem catching a rattler or a moccasin bare handed.

I have come across a couple around my place. I suspect I'm a bit east of the folks here with lots of them. I kill rattlers/copperheads/moccasins on my place if I see em without hesitation.

That said folks need to learn basic snake identification for their own good. I attract non venomous snakes, and I'll even stop and catch em crossing the road and bring em home to turn loose.

The more bull snakes, rat snakes, hognose, king snakes I can get living on my place, the less copperheads and rattlers I'll have around. There's only so many rodents to go around, and some king snakes will eat rattlers and copperheads.

As for ID'ing a snake, the simplest way to tell is to look at the eye, vipers like rattlers/copperheads and moccasins have vertical slit pupils like a cat's eye. Non venomous snakes eyes have perfectly round pupils like we do.

The only poisonous snake with round pupils is a coral snake, and the bright red/yellow bands makes them easy.

But for me the best way to keep poisonous snakes away is to learn which ones are beneficial and keep them around.

For 99.99% of human-snake interactions (in the US), I'd agree with this but for a tiny fraction something more is certainly going on. There's a rather humorous writeup in herpetology literature by a prominent researcher (like Roger Conant, Pope, or someone like that, I don't recall) about a 3' black racer literally following him around continuously striking at his ankles despite being pushed away repeatedly with a snake hook. Male racer, spring mating season. I've never seen anything like that from a harmless species, myself, but the story isn't some random one from an internet chat room.

Also, the various pit vipers almost surely, with their infra-red sensory capability, *know* any mammal, including a human looming over them, isn't a tree. The size and odor are wrong for prey, but I'd say they have the brain capacity and instincts to put you in the "possible predator that might eat me" cubbyhole. How any given pit viper reacts from there varies from species to species, then from situation to situation, and from individual snake to the next one. Copperheads and some rattlers like blacktails seem to rely *strongly* on their protective coloration and will sit quietly motionless even if approached closely within a foot or two, often seems to take outright stepping on one to get it to bite, or poking and prodding with a stick. Other species like eastern and western diamondbacks often, but not always, will sound their rattles with a human quite a distance away still generally throwing "S" coils into the air but often moving away backwards or laterally towards cover.

Then, there's those pesky cottonmouths. I grew up in Florida spending considerable time boating and wading around in swamps "herping" in particular. Cottonmouths were never especially common compared to harmless water snakes but I suppose I saw 30 or 40 at close range. They were never aggressive, always trying to move away from humans approaching them, and I only once saw the classic mouth-gaping behavior they're so famous for, that being by one that was surrounded by teenage herpers including myself poking it with snake hooks. Actually, the ones in Florida are officially classed as a separate subspecies with the observation their behavior is much less aggressive than elsewhere, along with a couple other things like scale row counts or such. So, at the point of the encounter I described earlier in NC, in the smallish pool during a spring drought, I still sort of wondered if the critters had been getting a real bad rap everywhere. Two of us had stopped at an *obvious* place to check out where a small bridge on a state highway crossed a small stream. There were several tangles of fishing line in the brush where we scrambled down a bank, obviously a spot for locals to do cane pole fishing. Not some obscure wilderness hole a mile deep in a trackless swamp or anything. The surrounding cypress swamp was pretty much bone dry except for a 2' deep pool connected to the stream the bridge was over. We waded out into the water, blue jeans and tennis shoes, one of us with Pilstrom tongs, the other with a hook, figuring it was a likely place for cottonmouths, looking carefully on vine covered logs, in sunning spots, etc. (My friend had just been the graduate teaching assistant at a major university's vertebrate zoology course run by a prof who was a professional herpetologist which I was taking, so this was sort of an extension of course work field trips.) This pool was maybe 1/8 acre at the most, maybe less. There's one... another in the water over there, suddenly a gaping striking open mouth jabbed out of vines on a log next to us and a small one splashed into the water following its striking motion. Now, this was a "black water" swamp area from heavy tannic acid so the water while not at all muddy, was opaque, you couldn't see more than a few inches down into it. Then about 20' away, maybe a 2 1/2' long one slid into, and under, the water off a log. As we watched, it surfaced 15' from us, gaped its mouth, wiggled its fangs, ducked back under the water, again invisible. Then 10' from us, resurfaced, heading straight at us still with that open-mouth display, then vanished under the water. At its 5' surfacing threat, whichever of us had the tongs snagged it and we stuffed it into a bag as we realized there was an ongoing series of those snakes acting in a similar fashion... not exactly coming at us from a distance all at once, but one here, one there, several at once not backing down, sliding into this black water and generally surfacing somewhat closer, mostly with those extended-fang, open mouth chewing motions in our direction.

Discretion and all that, we moved out of that pool in fairly short order. Maybe I wasn't smart enough to feel threatened, exactly, but it was the *one* encounter with venomous snakes I've had in which I didn't feel totally in control of the situation, and therefore safe. Those animals knew we were mammalian intruders, knew exactly where we were, and were not heading towards us randomly or trying to climb what they thought was a tree or a log.