# Rattlesnake on front porch



## Timberchicken (Apr 23, 2008)

Came to my parents house Monday and discovered 3' Diamondback on the front porch. Decided to take it out its misery since my kids play in the yard every chance they get.


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## Lead Poison (Apr 23, 2008)

Please kill all of those poisonous things.


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## redneckcamo (Apr 23, 2008)

pics ?


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## Timberchicken (Apr 23, 2008)

No pics, chunked him the thicket before kids arrived. Although I have educated them on snake identification (Claxton rattlesnake roundup), my youngest daugther is terrified of snakes.


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## JR (Apr 23, 2008)

Timberchicken said:


> No pics, chunked him the thicket before kids arrived. Although I have educated them on snake identification (Claxton rattlesnake roundup), my youngest daugther is terrified of snakes.



Educated or not.... I'm with your youngest daughter on this subject!


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## dawg2 (Apr 23, 2008)

kennyjr1976 said:


> Educated or not.... I'm with your youngest daughter on this subject!



They are so cute!


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## Timberchicken (Apr 23, 2008)

I cruise timber for a living, couldn't tell you how many I've stepped over, on, or seen. Would rather see them in a cage or at distince.


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## Lead Poison (Apr 23, 2008)

Timberchicken said:


> I cruise timber for a living, couldn't tell you how many I've stepped over, on, or seen. Would rather see them in a cage or at distince.



Of the ones you've stepped on, how high do they generally bite up the leg....ankle, calf, knee or above???


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## knifemaker (Apr 23, 2008)

Lead Poison said:


> Of the ones you've stepped on, how high do they generally bite up the leg....ankle, calf, knee or above???



He's still here a writin, so he musta stepped on their heads.On a serious note, I was standing on one about 30 inches long in a soft hay field in Montana in the 60's, and felt something bumping the side of my ankle, looked down and it was bumping me with the side of his head. I never did find the snake after I moved, ( which was fast), and I never did understand why it didn't strike me. I was standing on it leaving about six inches of body and head sticking out. Guess I had a guardian Angel.


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## germag (Apr 23, 2008)

dawg2 said:


> They are so cute!



Nice Sinaloan....


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## knifemaker (Apr 23, 2008)

germag said:


> Nice Sinaloan....



Is that the specie of snake, It is a nice one. I didn't let my wife see it, she'd have nightmares tonight.


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## germag (Apr 23, 2008)

knifemaker said:


> Is that the specie of snake, It is a nice one. I didn't let my wife see it, she'd have nightmares tonight.



Yep. It's a mexican species of milk snake (a type of king snake). It's common name is Sinaloan Milk Snake....scientific name is _Lampropeltis triangulum sinaloae_. It's a completely harmless snake that mimics the coral snake (which is, of course, venomous). It is a common pet snake in the U.S. and is very easily bred in captivity.


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## knifemaker (Apr 23, 2008)

germag said:


> Yep. It's a mexican species of milk snake (a type of king snake). It's common name is Sinaloan Milk Snake....scientific name is _Lampropeltis triangulum sinaloae_. It's a completely harmless snake that mimics the coral snake (which is, of course, venomous). It is a common pet snake in the U.S. and is very easily bred in captivity.



Thanks, I certainly don't want a snake for a pet, but have never been afraid of snakes, even poisonous ones. have caught several rattlesnakes and copperheads. Usually leave them be in the woods, but dispatch them around a settlement.


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## Timberchicken (Apr 23, 2008)

Lead Poison said:


> Of the ones you've stepped on, how high do they generally bite up the leg....ankle, calf, knee or above???



Never have been bit that I know of. The question should be; How high did you jump to keep from getting bit?


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## RATTLER (Apr 23, 2008)

kennyjr1976 said:


> Educated or not.... I'm with your youngest daughter on this subject!



i am with you there are 2 kind of snakes i dont like live ones and dead ones


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## JR (Apr 23, 2008)

knifemaker said:


> I didn't let my wife see it, she'd have nightmares tonight.



Can't believe Dawg2 didn't warn me before I scrolled down!!!


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## JR (Apr 23, 2008)

RATTLER said:


> i am with you there are 2 kind of snakes i dont like live ones and dead ones



Yep the ONLY 2 I can really deal with are the dead ones (that I see from afar) and the ones I NEVER see!


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## RATTLER (Apr 23, 2008)

kennyjr1976 said:


> Yep the ONLY 2 I can really deal with are the dead ones (that I see from afar) and the ones I NEVER see!



i agree


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## Timberchicken (Apr 23, 2008)

Had a buddy struck by rattlesnake few years back while cruising timber. It struck so hard it knocked him off his feet. Luckly he was wearing snake chaps. Scared him but hasn't slowed him down.


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## field (Apr 23, 2008)

*king vs Coral (helps me remember)*

Red and Yellow kill a fellow!
White and Black okay jack!


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## ray97303 (Apr 24, 2008)

field said:


> Red and Yellow kill a fellow!
> White and Black okay jack!



My kind of luck to grab the one that would kill a fellow. So I will leave you guys to having snakes for pets and wanting to be a snake handler!


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## Lake Oconee Flash (Apr 24, 2008)

Hey 60Grit when you got thumped on the leg you did'nt suck some BVD's up around your tonsils did ya??


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## germag (Apr 24, 2008)

field said:


> Red and Yellow kill a fellow!
> White and Black okay jack!



Yeah, that little saying:

"_Red touch yellow, kill a fellow- Red touch black, friend of jack_" (or some variation thereof) is good as long as you are in North America. As soon as you move into Central and South America, it's out the window.


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## dawg2 (Apr 24, 2008)

germag said:


> Nice Sinaloan....



Close!  It's a Nelsons, they are a bit nicer than the Mexican / Sinaloans.  I always tell people it is a Coral Snake and ask if they want to hold it


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## dawg2 (Apr 24, 2008)

kennyjr1976 said:


> Can't believe Dawg2 didn't warn me before I scrolled down!!!



SNAKE!


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## dawg2 (Apr 24, 2008)

germag said:


> Yeah, that little saying:
> 
> "_Red touch yellow, kill a fellow- Red touch black, friend of jack_" (or some variation thereof) is good as long as you are in North America. As soon as you move into Central and South America, it's out the window.



Exactly...only works in North America.


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## germag (Apr 24, 2008)

dawg2 said:


> Close!  It's a Nelsons, they are a bit nicer than the Mexican / Sinaloans.  I always tell people it is a Coral Snake and ask if they want to hold it



Doesn't really look like _nelsoni_ to me....the black bands are too narrow and the red too "clean". Looks like a very clean sinaloan. Take a look at Bob Applegate's animals. It can be hard to distinguish sometimes because there is a lot of variation in both races and one can look a lot like the other. But....regardless it's a nice animal. Looks fat and happy!

BTW, until fairly recently, they were all thought to be the same sub-species (geographic race). Then the race from near Mazatlan was recognized as a separate race (Williams 1978) and subsequently named _L.t.sinaloae_.


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## dawg2 (Apr 24, 2008)

germag said:


> Doesn't really look like _nelsoni_ to me....the black bands are too narrow and the red too "clean". Looks like a very clean sinaloan. Take a look at Bob Applegate's animals. It can be hard to distinguish sometimes because there is a lot of variation in both races and one can look a lot like the other. But....regardless it's a nice animal. Looks fat and happy!
> 
> BTW, until fairly recently, they were all thought to be the same sub-species (geographic race). Then the race from near Mazatlan was recognized as a separate race (Williams 1978) and subsequently named _L.t.sinaloae_.



It is fat.  And after 7 or 8 PM don't mess with it.  It goes into active mode

I think it is a sinaloan like you said, but it was labeled a Nelsons.  I think the store had it wrong.


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## Guy (Apr 24, 2008)

germag said:


> Yep. It's a mexican species of milk snake (a type of king snake). It's common name is Sinaloan Milk Snake....scientific name is _Lampropeltis triangulum sinaloae_. It's a completely harmless snake that mimics the coral snake (which is, of course, venomous). It is a common pet snake in the U.S. and is very easily bred in captivity.



Remember the saying..
Red next to yellow will kill a fellow, red next to black a friend of jack?  Ithink that's how it went..


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## germag (Apr 24, 2008)

dawg2 said:


> It is fat.  And after 7 or 8 PM don't mess with it.  It goes into active mode
> 
> I think it is a sinaloan like you said, but it was labeled a Nelsons.  I think the store had it wrong.



Yeah, that's not uncommon at all.....pet store employees are typically not the most knowledgeable people with regards to reptiles..... I heard one tell a customer one time that the 2" baby sulcata tortoise she was about to buy would only get to be a "couple of pounds and about this big....(showing the size of a dinner plate with his hands)", and "you can just feed it canned cat food." Obviously I had to speak up on that one......I figured the potential owner had a right to know that this thing would get big enough to ride, live for 150 years, and was a strict vegetarian.


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## rjcruiser (Apr 24, 2008)

Guy said:


> Remember the saying..
> Red next to yellow will kill a fellow, red next to black a friend of jack?  Ithink that's how it went..



No...no....no....y'all have it wrong.  It was 

Red on yellow kill a fellow,
Red on Black venom lack.


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## RJY66 (Apr 24, 2008)

rjcruiser said:


> No...no....no....y'all have it wrong.  It was
> 
> Red on yellow kill a fellow,
> Red on Black venom lack.





That reminds me of a hunt I went on 20 years ago.  A guy invited me to go with him in the Ogeechee river swamp.  He put me out and pointed me in the direction of my stand which I eventually found.  The guy who built the stand was an ironworker and it showed.  I had to climb a a huge tree with cotton spindles stuck in it for steps.  I was 50% more man and all of it around the waist back in those days and I was kind of concerned about banging my new Browning rifle on one of those giant nails so the climb up was not easy.  I did not have enough sense back then to bring a rope to pull up my gun.....I was a total rookie!

I get up there eventually and am happy.  I saw a little button buck right off and I am having a great time.  For no particular reason I look down to the base of the tree and see a snake climbing up straight towards me!  It was banded!  It is a blankety blank coral snake or at least might be!  

My first thought was to shoot it.  I quickly scrubbed that idea because it was about as big around as a pencil, the angle was all wrong,  and I might hit one of those giant nails or shoot myself in the foot! 

So, I decide to break off a limb and planned to wait on the snake to get close enough for me to knock off the tree.  I was trying my best, my very best, to remember if it was "red on yellow or red on black".  I could never decide and I was panicking!

Sure enough the snake got close enough and I nervously knocked him off the tree.  Guess what?  He doubled over on one of those cotton spindles, reversed course and headed straight back up the tree towards me!  O crap, I've ticked it off!  So I wait for it to get close enough and that time, I flung him about 5 miles!  To this day, I don't know if it was a king snake, coral snake, or something else.  

After that episode, I decided it was just easier to remember that the coral snakes are the ones with the black noses!

If I had not looked down for no reason, that snake might would have climbed right up in the stand with me.  What memories that would have made!


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## flintdiver (Apr 24, 2008)

Here in the SE USA don't worry about the little rhyme. Just look at the nose/head of the tri-colored snake if you happen to see one. If it's black, it's a coral snake. Thats as simple as it gets. If it red, it's a scarlet snake or scarlet kingsnake.


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## law dawg (Apr 24, 2008)

Help me out here.  I have seen people posting that "if the head is black, its coral."  That pic above of the snake has a black head.  What am I missing?


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## germag (Apr 24, 2008)

That's exactly right. In North America a blunt, black snout is a coral snake. There are also some misconceptions about coral snakes that need to be dispelled.

Misconception #1. A coral snake's fangs are in the back of it's mouth. This is false. Coral snales are proteroglyphic snakes, meaning tha they have fixed fangs in the front of their mouth. They are members of the family Elapidae, and are related to cobras, kraits, and mambas. They have an extremely potent neurotoxic venom and a bite can easily be fatal. Their fangs are short, but are easily capable of penetrating human skin.

Misconception #2. A coral snake's mouth is small and he can only bite you between the fingers or someplace where he doesn't have to open his mouth wide. This is also false. They can open their mouth much wider than you might imagine and can easily bite fingers. 

That being said, coral snakes are inoffensive, shy, and unagressive animals and are really rarely seen. They pose no danger at all unless they are captured or otherwise molested. But, just because they are unoffensive and shy, that does not mean they won't bite. I have captured specimens that simply tried to hide their heads and made no offer whatever to bite, and I have captured others that tried to bite everything they got close to. They are unpredictable in that regard and have a tendency to make sudden, rapid sideways lashing strikes when restrained. 

One of the oddest things I've ever heard of was a Florida man back in the late 1970's who found one at a family picnic and caught it. He had several beers in him at the time and decided that it would be great entertainment for the crowd if he tormented the snake for a while....so, he was holding the snake right in front of his face and sticking his tongue out at the snake, I guess he was trying to do a snake impression or something. At any rate, he was actually hitting the snake on the snout with his tongue and it finally bit him on the tongue. The ER attendants were somewhat doubtful that he had been bitten by a snake and the fact that he had obviously been drinking didn't help....the symptoms of coral snake envenomation mimic somewhat they symptoms of alcohol intoxication...so antivenin therapy was delayed somewhat. At any rate, it was a fatal envenomation.

One of the problems with coral snake envenomation is that the longer you wait before getting treatment, the less effective the antivenin may be.


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## germag (Apr 24, 2008)

law dawg said:


> Help me out here.  I have seen people posting that "if the head is black, its coral."  That pic above of the snake has a black head.  What am I missing?


It was also said that these little "guidelines" are only applicable to North American (U.S.) snakes. The snake in the picture is a Mexican snake.

Plus, if you look closely, the snake in the picture has some white on his snout.


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## dawg2 (Apr 24, 2008)

germag said:


> That's exactly right. In North America a blunt, black snout is a coral snake. There are also some misconceptions about coral snakes that need to be dispelled.
> 
> Misconception #1. A coral snake's fangs are in the back of it's mouth. This is false. Coral snales are proteroglyphic snakes, meaning tha they have fixed fangs in the front of their mouth. They are members of the family Elapidae, and are related to cobras, kraits, and mambas. They have an extremely potent neurotoxic venom and a bite can easily be fatal. Their fangs are short, but are easily capable of penetrating human skin.
> 
> ...



I had one get in my sleeping bag one night in the jungle in the middle of nowhere in Panama, C.A.  Needless to say, I freaked out when I dumped my sleeping bag to see what the cold thing was slithering between my toes and thought I was DEAD when I saw what it was.  I checked my feet and toes looking for a bite, seeing none, I chopped the snake into 1/2 " cutbait with my machete.  It scared the bejeezus out of me.


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## whitworth (May 12, 2008)

*Nothing like*

a dead rattlesnake on the grill.  

Rather partial to the French gourmet food called escargot. You South Georgians know what they are? 

Of course, there was some things I rather not know what they were, after I ate them.


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## Toliver (May 12, 2008)

I've never feared snakes.  Brought my first one home when I was 5.  Now 60Grit's avatar.....THAT scares me.


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## Lostoutlaw (May 12, 2008)

Toliver said:


> I've never feared snakes.  Brought my first one home when I was 5.  Now 60Grit's avatar.....THAT scares me.



Yes I shall have to agree with ya on 60 Grits avatar scares you and me....

But then what can ya expect from China


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## bullgator (May 12, 2008)

Red touches yellow, BANG...............nevermind


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## Timberchicken (May 12, 2008)

I have had 2 big rattlesnakes get away from me in last week. 1st one, I had my kids on 4 wheeler with me and he got in briar thicket before I could get something to kill him with. Second one got away off a dirt road into a kudzo patch.


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## gadeerwoman (May 13, 2008)

snakes are moving now big time. Killed a 2 1/2 foot copperhead about 5 yards from the front steps Sunday. Time to really pay attention to where you put your hands and feet.


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## Dead Eye Eddy (May 13, 2008)

Thanks Sandra.  We're having a camp cleanup day Saturday.  You can bet I'll have the .357 on my hip.  I killed a 44" timber rattler in camp last year during bow season.  He may have some relatives looking for revenge.


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