# Snakebite!



## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

AgNews...

Regards, Mike

http://www.agweb.com/article/snakebites-always-a-farm-danger-NAA-chris-bennett/


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Youngest son caught and dispatched this Timber Rattler last week.....

Regards, Mike


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Thanks, got the Hebbie jebbies now.......I'm constantly around Mr. No shoulders......


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Just when I get to thinking the south sounds like a good place to live.....Snakes? No thanks.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Actually, the odds of snakebite are quite less than lightning strike.....snakebite is about 1/10th the odds of lightning strike.

Regards Mike


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

Vol said:


> Actually, the odds of snakebite are quite less than lightning strike.....snakebite is about 1/10th the odds of lightning strike.
> 
> Regards Mike


Unless you spend a lot of time in the outside, that stat has to be for the average person......I worry way more about snakes than lightning, mainly cause I spend most all my time outside, it's probably about 1-1 for me when considering everything.....JMHO


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Vol said:


> Actually, the odds of snakebite are quite less than lightning strike.....snakebite is about 1/10th the odds of lightning strike.
> 
> Regards Mike


But am I figured into those odds? Me and lots of others have about zero chance.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

deadmoose said:


> But am I figured into those odds? Me and lots of others have about zero chance.


No, I don't think yous guys  count....


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

No snakes in MN?


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

somedevildawg said:


> No snakes in MN?


Nothing poisonous. Or big. Maybe somewhere south but not here. Garter snakes.


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

None here either. Maybe some blue racers and garter snakes, thats about it. I wear snake gaiters when hunting out west though. No fire ants and no gophers either.... and no Africanized killer bees....yet.


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## ARD Farm (Jul 12, 2012)

Vol said:


> Youngest son caught and dispatched this Timber Rattler last week.....
> 
> Regards, Mike


Loos like a pair of boots in the making......


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

A few years back I was doing a bit of landscaping and was working on building a raised bed for some people. I was using railroad timbers to make the bed out of. I rolled over one of the timbers and there laid a timber rattler about the size of the one in Mikes picture all coiled up ready to strike.....boy did I jump back fast.....was kind of lucky that I didn't get bit considering how close my hands were to it. Don't really come across rattlers too often here but copperheads are a different story. No cottonmouths or coral snakes here.....have to go a bit farther south or east to get into them.


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## JD3430 (Jan 1, 2012)

Ran into this little guy today. No rattlesnake for sure, but it'll snip your toe off with little trouble.
So ugly it's cute.


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## Thorim (Jan 19, 2015)

ARD Farm said:


> None here either. Maybe some blue racers and garter snakes, thats about it. I wear snake gaiters when hunting out west though. No fire ants and no gophers either.... and no Africanized killer bees....yet.


 Bad news my friend

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12145_12201-32995--,00.html

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=michigan+rattlesnake&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=EED76DB40C55715F1ECAEED76DB40C55715F1ECA


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

That's a cool looking snake....I was thinking it must be cold as the snakes looked purty lethargic, at least you wouldn't handle a diamondback like that, but the vid ended by saying it was a very gentle snake....that's interesting. You could tell the "reporter" never had many dealing with snakes in general lol


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Got a banded gwadar (snake) living in my hay shed.

She at last sighting was about 4 feet long. In snake world, girls I am told hang about in the same place whereas boys roam around looking for girl snakes, kinda like real life with boys roaming around in search of a gal.

She is nowhere near the girth of that timber rattlesnake. As a matter of interest: How many rattles did it have?

Banded gwadars come in a range of colours with black bands. each band in fully grown sakes being about 4 inches to six inches wide. My little girl is gold and black. Reputed to have about the eighth most potent venom in the world.

Snake experts (herpetologists) tell me she is more frightened of me than I am of it but I do not believe that could possibly be the case.

I have seen a Gold and Black banded gwadar each year around my hay shed , for about the last 5 years, starting off at about 18 inches long and being longer each year. Our snakes grow in length very rapidly for the first few years then grow in length quite slowly but get thicker. My little girl will slow down in elongation now she is at 4 feet long. If she lives long enough, by the time she is say 10 to 15 years old she would be about 5 foot 6 inches or maximum length although the lifespan is not accurately known.

Not many people die Downunder from snske bite.

The one snake all experts agree with the most toxic venom, the inland taipan has not had a single death attributed to it in the last 30 years. Reason: it has a limited distribution in an area where there are very few people - not because of the snake's presence but because it is very arid.



Vol said:


> Actually, the odds of snakebite are quite less than lightning strike.....snakebite is about 1/10th the odds of lightning strike.
> 
> Regards Mike


More probably die from lightening strike or in Western Australia's case more die from shark attack of recent years than of snake bite.

If she keeps out of my way I will keep out of hers and she can help herself to as many mice as she likes.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

The rattler had 6 buttons or rattles. Timbers usually have several less rattles than diamondback rattlesnakes.....which can easily have a dozen rattles at maturity.

Regards,Mike.


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## luke strawwalker (Jul 31, 2014)

I guess for a timber rattler that's a good size one... like water moccasins, they tend to be shorter but fatter...

We had a buddy out at Junction (West Texas) who had some neat pictures and stuff... it's a dry, hot, rocky hill country environment, and just TONS of western diamondback rattlers...

He had a picture from the 50's of him and a buddy standing on the tailgate of his pickup, holding their arms up as high as they could over their heads, holding up western diamondback rattlesnakes they'd killed on their farm... the rattles and part of the tail was over their hand, the snake stretching down from their uplifted hands, past the truck tailgate they were standing on, and down to the ground, and still a foot or two of snake and the head laying stretched out/slightly coiled on the ground... IIRC he told me the largest diamondback taken in the county was like 12 feet long or so... He had a snake skin on the wall, and it was at least 10 feet long... Long enough to make a belt, even for a fatboy like me... LOL

I used to have a buddy I drove school buses with. When he was in the Army in the mid-60's, before he got shipped to Vietnam in his last year before he got out, he was a truck driver at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico... his job was to drive a water tanker (old gasoline tanker truck, like in that Dennis Weaver movie "Duel") and haul water up to various storage tanks sited up on the ridge line on top of the hills/mountains in various areas around the base. (They then ran the water down by gravity through pipes to the various measuring and tracking stations located on the base to monitor missile tests). Of course there were diamondback rattler's everywhere... He found out that the MP's had a taste for rattlesnake meat, and they'd pay him for every snake he brought them... so he got an old broom handle, screwed a screw eye into the side of it at one end, and tacked a piece of cable to the other side, and stretched the thin cable wire up to the other end of the handle, and made him a "snake lanyard" to catch the suckers... when he'd see a rattler in the road, he'd hit the parking brakes, jump out of the truck, grab his lanyard, and go lasso the thing with the loop on the end, and drag it over to the trailer. Those old gasoline tanker trailers used to have a several big compartments on either side at the back end-- one held the pump to pump the water, and others were for storing adapters, tools, and hoses to run from the pump to the tanks. One of the compartments he'd keep empty and he'd open the door and toss his rattlesnake he caught in with the others, and finish making his water run. When he got back to the main gate, the guards would get his lanyard, pull the snakes out one by one, and dispatch them with a machete... and pay him for his "delivery"... He had a nice rattlesnake hatband one of the guards gave him as a gift as their "#1 snake catcher"... LOL

Later! OL JR


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

luke strawwalker said:


> I guess for a timber rattler that's a good size one... like water moccasins, they tend to be shorter but fatter...


Average.

Regards, Mike.


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## Coondle (Aug 28, 2013)

Oh, one more thing you may like to ponder about differences between snakes and lightening.

There is a story that lightening doesn't strike the same place twice...........


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## TJH (Mar 23, 2014)

Do they count the ones that crap them selves to death when they see one in that one tenth?


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