Posted on 11/19/2010 10:16:49 PM PST by roses of sharon
HUNTERS AND FARMERS AND THOSE WHO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY.....TAKE HEED....
My fellow friends and family,
We have killed 57 rattlesnakes on two separate ranches this year. 24 @South bend & 33 @ Murray, since mid May. Not one has buzzed! We provoked one fair sized boy with a stick and he coiled & struck at the stick a couple of times before he buzzed up and rattled. The purpose of this explanation is that I have been hearing the same from fellow ranchers and hunters in regards to the lack of warning with rattlesnakes.
I had lunch with a friend today and he offered a theory about the fact that these bugs aren't rattling anymore. He raised pigs for years and reported that when he would hear a rattlesnake buzzing in the sow pen, the sows would bee line to it and fight over the snake. For the uninformed, pigs love to eat rattlesnakes.
Therefore, the theory is they are ceasing to rattle to avoid detection, since there are plenty of pigs roaming the countryside. I have a neighbor ranching lady who was bitten 3 weeks ago 2 times by the same snake without any warning....she spent 5 days in ICU, after 22 vials of anti-venom she is back at the ranch and still may lose her foot or worse yet her lower leg.
The days of perceived warning are over. Keep your boots on and use a light when out and about. As you all know, one can pop up just about anywhere! You may wish to forward this to anyone that would be interested.
These guys think the rattlesnakes have stopped warning with their rattles before striking because the abundance of wild hogs has taught them that if they rattle a hog will come and eat them. The wild hogs are a problem (ferrule not Razorbacks which are not so plentiful but which must also eat snakes) to farmers and ranchers and now they have possibly made the rattlers a bigger problem. Just in case you guys get out in the woods or wilds.
At 9494’ we ain’t got no rattlers, rattling or otherwise. Need to go down to about 7,500’ to find any.
Reporting in from the Colo. Springs area. My wife had an encounter with one while hiking, she wasn't bitten, apparently that particular rattler didn't get the memo either.
Oh, I thought this was about Obama.
Your experience agrees with mine. Rattlesnakes that can run away normally do, and do so quietly. If cornered, what I’ve seen is about 50:50 rattle/quiet.
On one occasion in Yellowstone, I had a large (4-5 feet) rattler that attacked our lunch site 4 times. The first three times, we took a large stick and tossed him away. The 4th time, we pinned him and killed him.
But as long as it lives at least 100 yards from my house, I don’t mind them.
About 10 years ago, on Edwards AFB, 6 coyotes stalked my daughter while she was walking our Border Collie. Both she and Leila knew full well they were being stalked, but between them they presented enough of a danger to the coyotes that there was no attack - and after 10 tense minutes, they made it back inside the family housing area.
Leila watching our baby around 1999:
Thanks for the input..I figured Freepers would have the straight scoop on this!
I saw that (ferrule) in the fwd email, didn’t know if it was a Texas thing or what:)
I am up in Mich now, but was born and raised in TX...and had plenty of run-ins with rattlers. My cousin was bit while we were playing in the garden.
Scary stuff.
Would a warning really be too much to ask? I mean at least I play Jaws music first........
:-)
Some people can smell Rattlesnakes and Water Moccasins before they ever see them. To me, Rattlers smell like licorice candy and Moccasins have a smell like old wet newspapers. I think the snakes use it as a warning if someone is too close.
I have located several that I didn’t see until I started searching after smelling them.
Have you ever seen a Massassagua rattler?
Adaptation, not evolution.
Is that Nanssssy Pelosssssi ?
Of course. LOL!
But now I miss my wonderful border collie even more... {sigh}
I would suggest that it is Darwin that is vindicated.
The phenomena is called natural selection.
(No, I have not, thank goodness, but this boy did)
Boy, 7, recovering after Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake bites him in his backyard in Jackson County
Monday, August 23, 2010, 11:45 AM
Unlike other family members, 7-year-old Logan Coleman doesn’t have an aversion to snakes.
Clutching a handful of the plastic toy reptiles, he says his favorite is the venomous African black mamba.
He likes rattlesnakes, too, he said. Except for the one that bit him Wednesday in his Spring Arbor Township backyard in a rare encounter with Michigan’s only venomous snake.
“Logan screamed and said, ‘Mom, you have to come see what bit me,’ ” his mother, Kimberly Coleman, recalled Friday while standing near the family’s swing set where they found the snake coiled in the grass.
Logan and his 4-year-old sister, Natalie, were raking leaves in the backyard Wednesday afternoon when Logan said he saw a “funny looking leaf.” Curious, he bent down to touch it.
Lying well camouflaged among the leaves and grass in the yard, the snake — later identified as an Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake — bit Logan’s left thumb when he touched its head.
It didn’t take long for his thumb to swell and become stiff.
“I couldn’t even move it an inch,” Logan said, holding out his thumb, still bruised and puffy two days later and his arm marked by dark lines emergency personnel used to monitor the swelling.
Fearful of snakes, Kim Coleman called her husband, Bryan, and a neighbor who told her to take Logan to the hospital after he saw the reptile. The neighbor managed to wrangle the snake into a container to take to the hospital so it could be identified, Coleman said.
The snake was still alive when it was brought into the Allegiance Health emergency room, where staff were able to confirm it was an Eastern Massasauga, hospital spokesman Shannon Scholten wrote in an e-mail.
He estimated it has been more than a decade since the hospital saw a patient who had been bitten by a snake.
Logan was later taken to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, where he was treated for the bite and released Thursday.
Lived in western Michigan 30 years, about half in rural areas and saw only one: a small baby sunning itself on a rock. Recently, though, it seems there’ve been more dangerous run-ins with snackes in Michigan.
Tough little suckers......
Thanks for reminding me not to pick up funny looking leaves.
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