Unfortunately you have to cut the snake free. It's a gross and ugly job. Alternatives are to park the mower on top of an ant hill (the large red harvester ants will work, or fire ants). It will take them most of week to clean it up. Or just park it in the woods somewhere where wild animals can nibble away at the carcass and solve your problem. Letting it rot away under water will work quicker but will ruin the mower. Leaving it alone, untouched just gives you a mummified snake which can be even harder to dig out of the belts.

LOL. I put on some gloves and pulled it out (in several pieces). There wasn't that much blood.

He must have dripped dry while I was mowing :)

I think I'll be checking my mower every time I use it carefully from now on!! That gives me the creeps!!

Yeah, no kidding. I just mowed yesterday, but didn't check the rider, and I get snakes from hell around here. Gotta look where you walk every step. Drives me nuts!! I'm putting out covered sulphur trays to discourge them this year.

One day (maybe last year) our water feature/waterfall pump stopped working. I happened to have my landscaper on the phone to "walk us through" checking out the pump. When I saw the black snake hanging out, I told him "we don't need a landscaper, we need a veterinarian." Alas, it was too late for the poor snake. The landscaper has had a lot of fun telling that story to everyone who gets a water feature! :-) The pump worked just fine after my husband removed the dead snake.

Cameron