Last summer this one was about 10 yards from where the one was.this week. Must be mail thieves.

theres two very big timber rattlers around the house . closes i seen of them is half a pictures . i ever see them in the yard or shed they gone .


thats a full grown one

I'm not much into snakes, though I should but don't wear leg gators, I do walk when it's dark, etc.

Probably like many of you - I’m amazed that I haven’t been bit many times as much time as I have spent in the woods and fields.

When I was younger we had a small farm (parents 75-acres) and in the Summer we hauled A LOT of hay. It was not uncommon to see a dead snake in a hay bale on any given day. I watched a guy throw a 65+ pound hay bale a record distance and start sprinting across the field one-day when he kneed a bale to throw it on the trailer and had a dead copperhead staring him in the face. It took him a while to calm down.

I was at buddies house one evening. When I left it was dark outside. Luckily, we started talking when we got outside, so my eyes adjusted some. When I got to my car. I could kinda make out a squiggly line next to my driver's door in his driveway. I called him over and he couldn't see it. He cut the outside light on and sure enough it was a copper head. Ever since then I keep a flashlight on me to walk in the dark. If I would have walked and got in the car I would have stepped on it without seeing it.

You guys will think I'm crazy, but I only kill rattlesnakes if they are in my yard. I saw 5 different ones on my road last year that I made sure to move away so nobody would run them over. A couple I had to move 2 or 3 times. I saw 3 more in the woods that I left alone. Timber rattlesnakes are typically pretty docile. Even when I move them I rarely get one that will strike at me. Their habitat is really shrinking and with all the others killing every one they see I feel the need to protect them. They can live up to 50 years, so killing a few really hurts the population. I know of over 20 that were killed on our place last year and that isnt counting the ones killed on the road that I didnt see. So, I try to do my part to save as many as I can.

Though when they get in my yard where my kids play that is where I draw the line.

I'd be taking sight pictures in those instances.

Stepped around a tree yesterday and got the warning sign. Scared the mess outta me. He was only ab 3’ but was not very happy with me

Sometime soon I am going to show ya'll pictures of the Rattlesnake and the UXO I almost stepped on at the same time. That would have been a heck of thing to explain at the emergency room.

I hate snakes. Got my nickname from the wrassler.

I didn’t know that.

How and why would it change? That’s scary. We have huge timber rattlers. I mean big uns and we
kill a bunch every year

Yeah ,,, I didn't take the picture . Grand niece took . Why they didn't come get me i don't know . They saw the whole snake

Remember the old advice? Something you could do

with a car battery to reverse the venom?

I think it got debunked.

People swore by it for awhile.

When I was an undergrad, I helped in the herp dept working on a snake digestion study. I was dealing with a few harmless rat snakes and got a few hours credit on the paper I wrote about it towards graduation. The main PHD candidate researcher of that project was looking at how pit viper venom changes during the year depending on what prey items were most prevalent. Basically, the chemical make-up of the venom somehow could change sligtly to be more effective on whatever the snakes were feeding on. I knew that the venom could change, but that's the first time I've heard that pitvipers could manufacture neurotoxin like corals and cobras.

I don't like them in the yard, but in the woods, I let them go on making a living.

I don’t kill them either. I’ve never killed one to my knowledge. I killed a copperhead in my yard by my kids once, but I guess I respect rattlesnakes too much.

No rattler gets a pass from me!

Killed a small copper head last week laying in the opening to one of my gates at the cattle farm .
He was laying on the bare ground. I walked by him 2x within 2 ft before I saw him . No gun with me but my shovel did the trick !

They all Cobras to me!!