Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

[Baymule]

My Great Pyrenees kills snakes. She absolutely hates them.

In Texas we have water moccasins, rattlesnakes (tasty when fried), copper heads and coral snakes (red and yella kill a fella, red and black, friend of Jack). My mule stomped a coral snake, I checked her for bite marks and found none.

 

[Baymule]

Hope everyone up north beinh affected by this winter storm is doing OK... @samssimonsays & @misfitmorgan come to mind initially. The front passed through here starting about 6:30am. Heard some thunder then saw some lightning flashes then heard the rain start so I jumped out of bed and call Mel inside so I wouldn't have wet, muddy dog to deal with later, then went back to bed and tried to get back to sleep... no dice on that. So anyway, it's ab out 20 degrees cooler than it was yesterday so I wore my flip flops out on the back deck to use the spa... Didn't think anything of it and kicked them off right next to the spa and climbed in. After the 1st 1/2 hour I saw Mel over on the lawn chewing on what I thought was a piece of firewood... Ya... no... it was one of those delicious flip flops.

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He is almost 2 years old and hasn't messed with any clothing, shoes or slippers for over a year... Grrrr... <sigh> Oh well they were a size too large and uncomfortable so I was going to replace them anyway.

Got some much needed rain here this morning but it was pretty much over by lunch. I'd hoped it would last through the night and end tomorrow. I believe we got about an inch here. Maybe a little more.

Mel ain't stupid, he knew those tasty flip flops were too big for you, so he was just helping you out. He didn't want you to get a blister or sore feet...... That just shows you how smart Mel is! We got a half inch of rain out of that little storm, we're sure grateful, it was really dusty here.

 

[Goat Whisperer]

NC has many many copperheads! Several family members have been bit, one of the cats was bit at least on 4 different occasions. My friend was but on the foot and another friend's tiny 4lb dog was bit on the face-both happened this year. The dog almost died but made it through.

See them here laying on the rocks and in wood piles every now and then. We generally leave snakes alone but copperheads just need to "get dead".

 

[Mini Horses]

The only snake I will not attempt to kill is the king snake, black with yellow rings, as they fend off poisonous. BUT no matter how good with mice, do NOT go for the eggs. Can't go into a hen house and find them.....dead next time. These black rat snakes we have here get huge and climb like a lizard. If they stay away from the chickens, they have a chance. Otherwise, dead. May take a while but, dead. I'm pretty good with a machete.

I've caught possum & hauled 5-6 miles away to release. Caught some skunk & removed, not catching a snake. Just how it is. (have shot a possum, too!)

 

[Devonviolet]

The only snakes we have seen around here is King snakes.

One day DH came inside and told me he saw Roy in the feed shed. He said it gave him a start, but once he knew it was Roy, he was okay with him being there. I was puzzled, because we don't know a Roy. He said he was talking about the King Snake! He's okay with Roy hanging around because he eats mice.

Sometimes Roy is in the feed shed, sometimes he is in the chicken coop. One day DH found Roy in our turkey's nest, with a chicken egg in his mouth. I can't remember what he did . . . pushed at him with a stuck??? But, Roy dropped the egg and disappeared.

One day I asked DH if he thought maybe there are more than one King Snakes??? He said, well yes, there could be. It's just easier to call them all Roy!

 

[babsbag]

We have gopher snakes that look a lot like a rattler, you have to look at the shape of the head and the tip of the tail. No rattles does not mean not a rattle snake but the tail will be blunt; if it goes to a sharp point then not a rattler. We also have King snakes and mountain kings snakes. The mountain king snake is the one that @baymules ditty was written for. Our mountain king snake is red, black and yellow, just like the coral snake but the red and black bands touch each other...red on black, friend of Jacks. We don't have coral snakes, thank goodness.

My vet told me that Benadryl will do nothing for a rattlesnake bite and that it is not an alleregic histamine type reaction; it is a hemotoxin and the swelling is due to tissue damage. I know that they sometimes give an antihistamine to people before the antivenom in case they are allergic to that. If an animal or person is bit on an extremity they will normally fare better as the extremity will swell cutting off blood supply and hence the flow of the toxin.

 

[CntryBoy777]

@babsbag ....what ya say about the tail being blunt or tapered is the distinguishing of whether male or female...blunted is a male and tapered is a female...I had a Sinaloan milksnake...which is akin to a kingsnake and was banded with black, yellow, and red like a California king...the head is the immediate difference between venom and non-venomous....Triangulated is venomous....the coral is the only exception of this because they are not a Pit Viper...this applies to All native species....@Mini Horses we have those grey rat snakes here too....and I do try to relocate them but have killed some too....one was between 8-10' couldn't leave the eggs alone.... it had 3 in it the day I killed it.

 

[Latestarter]

So yesterday (Saturday - my days start around lunch time and end in the wee hours of the morning) I had the opportunity to go and meet @animalmom and her DH. Very nice people for sure! I hope to become an owner of some of her Nigie kids this coming year She was kind enough to allow me to sample some nice cold Nigie milk I have been purchasing and drinking raw milk from Jersey cows for the past month and thought that was awesome. Well, I now have a new standard to set as the peak of milk deliciousness (didn't think that was a word but spellcheck says it is). Sweeter than the cows milk and absolutely no goatie taste at all. Actually, her bucks were in rut and they didn't smell either. How she managed that, you'll have to ask her! So now the waiting begins for me on that front. I hope she'll start a kidding journal (in her copious spare time Right!) so we can all follow along.

She also gave me a tour & shared a wealth of information on what worked and didn't work for her from the beginning and moving forward! She's a bit far away so I don't expect to get to visit her regularly, But I hope she'll allow me to come out when her girls start dropping kids Very exciting!

Today I got to watch my Patriots play the 49ers in CA. It was raining pretty steady most of the first 1/2 of the game. I hope @babsbag got some good moisture out of that. Of course most of it will roll right off, but some might get absorbed... It'll help retention ponds too I guess.

I saw what I thought were cotton mouths when I first came here to walk the property. On reflection I believe they were actually copperheads. They have the "least damaging" venom of the 4 main species here, but I still don't want to get bit by one. Since then I have seen one black racer and nothing else. I know they're here, but they aren't bothering me and I have no intention of bothering them. The land here is pretty perfect for rattlers, and the creek beds/bottoms are known to have cottonmouths. I'm sure there are probably coral snakes here as well. I hope they all get their fill of rats and mice and the babies can have all the crickets and bugs they can catch! I have more of them than I know what to do with. If I could find a snake that would eat hornets and wasps, I'd import a hundred of them! We'll see how I feel when I get chickens... Time will tell.

 

[babsbag]

In my part of CA we got 4.75" of rain in the last 36 hours. Should be more coming in on Tuesday. Accuweather says that we have had 4.45" so far this month, and yet I had more than that in this last storm alone, and I know that there were some storms that gave me over an inch this last month. October was about 5" above normal so No. CA is doing ok as far as the drought recovery; So. CA not quite so much. What we need are some cold storms over the Sierra mountains so So. CA will have enough water to steal.

 

[Mini Horses]

Latestarter, get Guineas. I miss mine but they are the best bug eater I have ever seen and they are aggressive to things like snakes.....loud and crazy, seems to scare them away from their area. I've heard they are good eating, also. They don't coop well but can be trained if done as juveniles. Happiest in sizeable flock.