Copperhead in the Milking Room!

nehimama · #1 07/12/06, 08:59 PM

Well, it isn't really a milking "room", just a gated-off area, dirt floor, galvalume walls. It's where the milking stand is parked.

I was milking Lady, my sweet LaMancha doe just a little while ago, and a COPPERHEAD slithered out from under the stand! WHILE I WAS MILKING!

It really threw me for a moment. I sort of leaped off my seat on the milking stand, going "oh, shoot, oh, shoot!" (Well, actually, I said a lot worse than that, but that's the idea.) Lady, oblivious, kept on eating. :1pig:

I knew that if I lost it, I wouldn't be any good to myself or to Lady, so I tried to stay calm. Was going to go for the gun, but the other goats were in the area, and I didn't want any of them injured. So I went to the garden shed for the hoe. When I got back with the hoe, the darned snake met me at the gate to the milking room! I got Lady off the stand, and out into the pasture, intending to deal with the snake one-on-one.

I took careful aim with the hoe, and chopped that guy in half! It wasn't very big, but it doesn't take much of a copperhead to give me the willies.

I'm still sort of shaking! I know they say "where there's one, there's more." I did look around, but didn't see any others.

I STILL have the willies. Ick!

NeHi Mama

Faithful Heart · #2 07/12/06, 09:11 PM

Oh that is horrible!! I don't know how calm I'd be. Other than maybe keeping cool for the care and life of the doe. Yikes!

I'd be shaking too much after something like that to be able to type.

TexCountryWoman · #3 07/12/06, 09:33 PM

Pretty much the same thing happened to me a few weeks ago...right near where I milk my LaManchas...only it was a 4 1/2 foot long rattle snake....let's just say "I won"

ozark_jewels · #4 07/12/06, 09:58 PM

Go get 'em, Nehimama!!

I killed one a couple weeks ago while it was crossing the path to my kid barn. Never did find the mate.....maybe yours was too young to have one.

tinetine'sgoat · #5 07/12/06, 10:03 PM

Had a pair of them last year in our back lot, that I didn't see until I was about standing on them, went for the shot gun, but they were gone when I got back. I'm not scared of snakes, but copperheads and timber rattlers give me the willy's!!

OH!!! And you are a fearless goat mama!!!

nehimama · #6 07/12/06, 10:28 PM

Eeeeeeeew! I still have the willies. My Son In Law wanted to know if all snakes got the hoe treatment. I told him that one last week got the weedeater treatment.

Oh, TTG, I'm not fearless! I was shaking like a leaf when it was over. Ick, ick, ick!

Emily, I DO hope that one didn't have a mate. It might be looking for ME tomorrow, eh? Ick, ick, ick!

TCWoman - RATTLESNAKE - I'm glad you "won". Oh, ick, ick, ick!

FH, I'd guess you would stay collected 'til it was finished, THEN fall apart.

I can say "I hate snakes" in two languages.

NeHi Mama

AllWolf · #7 07/12/06, 10:54 PM

Oh my goodness. I'm sure glad you or your goats wasn't biten by that bad boy.. Go Get That Bad Boy!!

Spinner · #8 07/13/06, 12:02 AM

They say that if you build a little fire on the ground and burn that snake it will keep all the others away from that area. It might be an old wives tale, but I did it many years ago and haven't seen another snake of that type since. I now have guineas and peacocks, which are both known to kill snakes so the burn might or might not have kept the snakes away.

nehimama · #9 07/13/06, 06:28 AM

All right, Spinner! After I chopped it, I put it in a bucket of water to drown it - just in case. I'm going to retrieve the body and burn it. Hopefully that will do the trick.

I have tons of guineas around, but apparently they missed this one.

NeHi Mama

mpillow · #10 07/13/06, 07:21 AM

And I thought finding a dead garter snake in a hay bale was bad

I am deathly (think unconscious) afraid of snakes (even the little harmless ones here in Maine).....to the point of being given 16 acres of land in Virginia (free) and told my husband to kindly give it back to Grandma....no way in Hades was I gonna live w/28 kinds of poisonous snakes....I'm not kidding!

You guys are way braver than me....I'd rather face a black bear or bull moose any day

Sweet Goats · #11 07/13/06, 09:30 AM

WOW, I think I would of run like a baby. NO I know I would of. Way to go.

Spinner · #12 07/13/06, 02:23 PM

I'm deathly afraid of snakes too. I used to be so afraid that I'd freeze up when I seen a picture of one in a book. My kids on the other hand think they are fun to play with. A few years ago my daughter admitted to me that she caught a black snake and turned it loose under my house to eat mice. For awhile I had nightmares about a snake getting inside the house. I started setting on my feet when I was in a chair, and of a morning I would jump from the bed so as not to put my feet down by the side of it (in case that snake was waiting under the bed to bite my feet! LOL) I was a wreck for awhile. Then my daughter told me she caught the snake and carried it off down the road and turned it loose. She lied!!! That snake was still under my house, she had lied to me so I would calm down and not be so afraid.

I must admit, I haven't had a mouse problem for several years. Last fall I found a really fat black snake on my front porch, scared the heck outta me! My older son was here and he killed it for me. I'd venture to guess that it was the same one that my daughter put under the house a few years ago. He had grown fat and lazy gorging himself on the field mice. I had the automatic dog feeder on the front porch and the mice were getting in the feeder chowing down on the dog food. I think the snake had followed the mice up there, but we found him and killed him before he got the mice.

The down side is that now I'm fighting off the mice like crazy. I had to clean out all my cabinets and fill them with mouse traps. I hadn't thought about the snake for a few months, but maybe having him under the house was a good thing. The stupid snake should have stayed down there outta site and outta mind, then maybe I wouldn't have mice invading the house now.

nehimama · #13 07/13/06, 02:51 PM

Aw, Spinner, I feel for ya! A snake phobia can't be much fun. I really wish it had been a black snake that slithered out from under the milking stand. I would not have freaked, as I know they are good at keeping down the rodent population. But a copperhead is an entirely different story. You just can't keep from getting all willified when you meet one of them!

moosemaniac · #14 07/13/06, 02:54 PM

I can't imagine such a thing. Snakes don't really bother me, but where I live, we have absolutely NO poisonous snakes. Not too far south (40 miles or so) there are rattle snakes, but not here.

I did once have a next of baby garter snakes lift up their little heads and try to take me on though. It was kinda cute.

Ruth

Spinner · #15 07/13/06, 03:45 PM

I used to live on 80 acres in Missouri. The place was full of copperheads, right over the hill was rattlesnake country. I was very lucky that I never came face to face with any of the snakes, other than a spread head on a hill out back one time. I kept a HUGE area mowed all around the house so that probably kept most of them out in the tall grass away from the yard area (and I kept guineas.)

Got chased by a water moccasin in Kansas once. I was standing on the bank of a lake, minding my own business, just standing there holding my fishing pole. I saw the snakes head in the water swimming a few feet off the shore line. It saw me too and swam right over to where I was, came outta the water and after me! That was scary! I was one of several people on the bank, I must have been wearing a color it didn't like... LOL (I havent' gone fishing since that happened)

I'm not as afraid of them as I used to be. Now I think I could shoot one, or take after it with a garden hoe. It was hard to get to this point. I forced myself to face my fear and look at a picture in a book until I could touch the page, not the picture, but at least touch the book to turn the page. Phobia's are hard to overcome. But I've always believed that if you face your fear, you can overcome it. I'm still working on this one.

Didn't mean to hijack your post NeHi Mama. I'm glad you and Lady are okay.

Wingdo · #16 07/14/06, 10:53 AM

LOLOLOL.... you guys got me to thinking about the time my youngest two boys were 8 and 9. They had this sorta affliction, they liked money! So, every time they went to their aunts house they'd collect garder snakes, by the bucket fulls! They'd keep 'em in an old aquarium on the porch to sell, but one spring morning, during an awful storm, the boys got worried that their 20 snakes would drown before they could distribute them to all the local city kids. You guessed it, in the house they came! Yep, you guessed that also... all 20 garder snakes "accidently" escaped into their bedroom!

Well after a very busy morning of collecting 19 of these bad boys, they finally gave up and went on to school.

That evening, right after supper and home-work, we all sat down and were talking over the days events. My beloved, sitting on the love-seat next to a ceiling to floor cutain, was telling us all about her years of being the perfect student (yeah right), and suddenly here comes this snake crawling from behind her. We all saw it coming, but she didn't, and slowly accross her shoulder and on to her bare neck! The second it touched her neck she froze! I never in my life, ever, saw anyone stop talking, moving, and breathing, not to mention turn that color, so quickly! She swears she don't remember doing it, but she snatched up that little snake from my hand and sailed it from one end of the house to the other! The boys were suddenly on their way to the room to save rest of their money making venture before their mama could get to them first!

No snakes, drowning or not, were ever permitted in the house again!