Snake Question

[David]

Disposed of a copperhead the other day while it was hanging around our basement door.

Got bored tonight and was doing some surfing in regards to copperheads. Numerous sites noted that copperheads will share a den with black rat snakes which brings me to my point.

I have been told that it is good to have black snakes on your property because they will keep copperheads away. So....

1. Is that false?

or

2. Is there a difference between a black snake and a black rat snake?

 

[owljones]

Copperheads do den with Rat snakes sometimes. I don't think I've ever heard of rat snakes feeding on copperheads, however the theory could exist that rat snakes keep the rodent population down, which in turn might keep the food supply low, which in turn keeps the copperheads away.

There is no such thing as a "black snake", unless you are describing the color. Most likely they were speaking of a black rat snake.

 

[Jwrussell]

What owl said about Black snakes. Makes me wonder if they were really talking about a Black ____ Snake and wonder what the _____ was. Out of curiousity how did you get rid of him?

 

[David]

Yea, after a little research I discovered that when one uses the term Black Snake, a few snakes will fit under the name...not just one.

The baby copperhead was by a piece of downspout that I was about to replace. Reached down to pull a handfull of the weeds around it and saw it crawling. It proceeded onto the pavement so I couldn't use a firearm to kill it...smashed it's head with a long stick.

That being said, copperheads are the only snake I will kill on our 6 acres. We have 6 foot black rat snakes in numerous spots and due to having fields around us, they do a nice job on the mice.

I have only killed black rat snakes on 2 occasions while living here:

1. Two of them decided that living in our dryer vent would be a fun experience.
2. One decided that it would be neat to get into our finished basement and try to crawl up the side of my gun cabinet. I even removed that one and took it to the back field and guess what was back in the basement 2 days later. I figured he had his chance once and he was disposed of after coming in a second time.

On a related note, my wife discovered the one in the basement since I was outside doing yardwork. If you want to see a woman run really fast in birkenstock (sp) sandals, repeat the scenerio.

 

[Jwrussell]

LMAO, yeah I can imagine that site! We have plenty of harmless snakes around here in FL, but we get some nasties like the copperheads as well. Cool critters, but I don't like the poisenous ones...give me the creeps.