Sounds like a rat snake, Barb. I was sooo happy to see a rat snake in my yard yesterday! He is here to help with the mouse population, I'm sure.

A mouse got in my house via the doggy door few months ago, I saw him when he came in. Over the next two weeks it was EVERYWHERE. I even found droppings in my desk drawers!

I bought two kinds of humane traps, but no ... he was too smart for those. Finally had to use the old fashioned kind.

You know, it's against the law to kill cobras in India because they keep the rats in check. Unlike the cobra, the rat snake is harmless, except to rats and mice. Just think of him as a legless lizard, which we welcome.

Get a cat, mice and snakes both hate cats. I found a little garden snake in the veg plot last weekend. Picked him up and told him to find another place to hide and to look out for the cats and the chickens, cause they'll all eat him. Little snakes are good to have in the garden.

Having said that about a nice little garden snake, I also found a 4' Western rattler in my barn last Friday. Dh was more scared than I was, he couldn't get out of there fast enough. I wanted to tease the snake out of the rafters, yes he was 12' overhead. He wouldn't come down though, and now we don't know where he is. We're either going to have to find him or burn the barn. Not sure which one is on our agenda yet, DH's call.

If your snake had a triangular head, and two pronounced holes or 'pits' on his snout he was probably a poisonous variety, also referred to as a 'pit viper'. All snakes will 'bite' when teased, but only the poisonous types will make you sick. There are two that sound like the one you saw, one poisonous and the other not. If they were color bands alternating down the length of his body, you can look him up in Google and tell which one you saw.

Don't be too afraid of snakes. Just move slowly and stay out of their range. Once they know you've seen them, they get out of there. Cheryl

It all harks back to that Garden of Eden thing--the snake getting blamed because Eve couldn't keep her mitts off someone else's apples! If it weren't for snakes, we'd be up to our hubcaps in mice, rabbits and other pests! Snakes can feel you coming, and will try to get out of your way. A lot more snakes are killed by humans than humans by snakes (and many bites by venomous snakes are "dry" and without venom). Respect snakes, don't mindlessly fear them, and recognize them for all the good they do in the environment we share with them. It all harks back to that Garden of Eden thing--the snake getting blamed because Eve couldn't keep her mitts off someone else's apples!

Last year I was working in one of my parents flowerbeds laying a soaker system and came face to face w/ a juvenile water Moccasin.I hate those snakes and will kill them no mater where I am and with whatever I have.

This little guy was about 3 feet long and was upset when i woke him up. He struck at me twice and tried to chase me away. When he saw me grab the shovel it slithered into a hole and I spent 3 days of hide and seek. Finally I got him.

Water Moccasins are just down right mean and will bite for the fun of it. Because of this, small dogs, and little guys are always around my place or my parents I have to remove these guys before anyone gets hurt.

There are only a few snakes I will kill on site. Most others I will remove my property if I can.

As for garden type snakes I welcome them into my garden.

I'm not scared of little ol garden snakes I pick them up and put them somewhere else if it's in my way. But this Snake was biggggerrr than a graden snake and that I don't care for at all.

I think your right about it being a rat snake I looked it up and sure enough it looks the same. But I'm not going to get up close to this sucker to see just what he / she is.

I wouldn't mind it being somewhere eating all the mice we have around but it does not need to live in my shed does it?

It would take more than just one snake to get rid of the mice around here. Snakes only eat once a month and in the winter I've known them to go for months without eating.

DS loves snakes and has had snakes (poor mom). If DS was here he'd be all over that thing trying to catch it and he's 33 yo LOL.

You mentioned the "red" and "light" colors which makes me think you might have a copperhead. You should google that one. Mind that triangular shaped head - all of our venomous snakes have that except the coral snake (red and yellow kill a fellow).

I like having the non-venomous snakes around, too, but the venomous ones are not worth the risk around the house. I'll always keep the bull snakes, rat snakes, king snakes, etc. They keep you regular when you flip a feed sack over and they hiss at you from underneath.
; - )
J.D.

Barb, you can have one of my roadrunners - snakes are the number one item on their menu. If I had one less, then they would leave my little birds alone. Today, I found where he/she had caught one of my litte Eastern bluebirds --- now that ticked me off bigtime. I will definitely be after him with the broom tomorrow.

:o) Must be a biggin', Barb...

J.D. You crack me up! I also immediately thought copperhead....so pretty to be so deadly.

Husband was mowing last week and saw a snake and tried to catch it with the brush hog.......looked back again and it was sunning on the top of the mower deck, not a scratch on it!

SeaMommy--Not sure I would have anything I needed in the barn after that, might be looking for the matches myself!!

Barb, I'm sure that snake has skedaddled out of your garden by now. Let it go and it will take care of rodents in your neighborhood. I think you've probably read about my story about the baby copperhead we found curled up in a brick. I was able to scoop it up with a shovel into a plastic container then release it into the woods. My husband wanted to kill it but I wouldn't let him. Like marlingardener said - we need to respect them since they do so much for us. It could have also been a corn snake or a milk snake which are both non-poisonous. A copperhead is actually a very shy snake and you'd almost have to step on it before they would strike. Usually they get out of your way first. I would worry more about getting bit by a small copperhead rather than an adult since they don't know to reserve their venom for an actual meal. The big ones have learned that and as someone said earlier they will inject very little if any venom on something as big as we are that they can't eat.

I thought about calling animal control. Do they take care of snakes?
Carrie, if your roadrunners eat bird's I don't want him after all. I didn't know they ate bird.

The chances of finding that one snake are pretty slim. I doubt animal control will be able to help. One of the best things to do is take away their habitat, i.e. remove their hiding places and food source.............torch the place!! Just kidding, just kidding!!

Honestly, he was there because there was food in there. No food source - no snakes. Easier said than done, though. Good luck!!
J.D.

Animal control won't usually relocate snakes. My kids (ages 9 and 17) got scared of a rat snake when I was at work and called animal control. They were far more traumatized at watching them behead the poor thing. My neighbor thought his dogs had cornered a rattler last week and came over to get my opinion. I am so glad he did...it was a hognose snake that we tossed into the field. I hope the poor guy is still ok after that! What a beautiful snake.

Pam

I'm with all of you snake haters. I know poisonous from non-poisonous, but I still hate all of them. But I'm getting better at letting the non-poisonous ones live. I haven't killed any in a couple of years, but I have killed two coral snakes in the past couple of years. They were right up at my front door. We have a lot of ribbon snakes, and I saw one in my greenhouse yesterday and one right up against the front door the other day. This was the biggest ribbon that I had seen. I told my yard guy to remove non-poisonous ones from my yard and throw them into the field across the street.

I have had them in my house, garage, stepped on them when I step outside, had them fall on me when I open windows, etc. I don't need to hear all the "good" stuff about snakes. I still hate them!

I know all the good stuff snakes do and how bad things would be if we didn't have them. But, where I come from, most of them are poisonous so I have it ingrained in me that a snake is bad. I do everything not to find one and stay far away from them. I freak out when I see them. In my opinion, a dead snake is a good snake (I know, that is bad, but I hate them.)

I don't love snakes in my yard or pond, but most are not poisonous, and doing me more favors than I deserve, so I try to leave them in peace.

OK i am scared to death of snakes and to read this post freaks me outtttttt. What part of DFw are you in Mikeandbarb? Where is everyone else at where they found snake? I am in Valley Ranch in Irving, don't know what are the chances of finding snakes here.
But if i saw one i'd run away as fast as i could and gosh my lil ones plays in the backyard all the time.

Wow, I leave them alone, poison or no. I regularly see copperheads under my house and in the garage. I catch them and move them somewhere else. I'd rather have them than the mice.

When you see a copperhead, you always see 2 of 'em. On 3/29 one of my 2 wiener dogs got bit by a copperhead for the SECOND TIME. You figure she'd learn. You'd be wrong.

My grandparents built a house on several acres in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of Houston when my father and his brother were very young. There were rodents around, so one of the boys brought home a rat snake and set it loose. My grandmother still talks about that thing. She'd only see it now and then, and it would always scare the mess out of her. She said it was absolutely huge after just a few years.

Another snake story - we had tree trimmers dump a truckload of mulch on the driveway last spring. I was begging my husband to not let the kids climb it, because it had come from a creek, and I was worried about poison ivy. Turns out they got double lucky, because they didn't get poison ivy, and we found several racers around the area for a few days, including one the kids found dead in our driveway. Yikes! And those are mean snakes that will chase you just to bite!

The snake is gone YEAH, I just could not go into the shed with that snake in there out of fearing it would get up on the board above the door and fall on me or end up biting me at some point.
DS came over Sunday and caught him and took him down to the creek.
I'm still scared there might be more so I'm careful about going into the shed still.

I don't want them in or around my pond because I don't trust them to only eat the ugly or nondescript fish. Same with bullfrogs.
I saw a garter snake in the water, the first year or two that I had a pond, and I asked my thirteen year old neighbor to chase it away. They have feisty dispositions but it did leave and didn't come back. It was the biggest one I had ever seen - about three feet long. I had just learned that they do eat goldfish. Many years later, I found a black water snake, which was also prone to snap at people. I got my neighbor to net it and take it down the road to the brushy trees there. It never came back that I could see. I had lots of tree frogs in the storage shed it was in, so I thought it would come back but it didn't. He asked what I wanted done with it but I couldn't bring myself to ask him to kill it. I lied to DH and told him we killed it because he thinks we should kill them all.

I live in a pole house, the bottom being closed-in garage. A few years back, as I walked into the kitchen, something @ the window caught my eye. A rather looong rat snake had draped himself across the window screen. It took me a second to figure if he was inside or out....fortunately he was outside. I went outside & stuck my head around the corner to have a look. He was close to 4' long. Certainly not something I was expecting to see 10' off the ground.

Last week we saw a 5' rat snake crawling across the back yard. In spite of being 'helpful' snakes, that site is still startling.

DH was clearing some brush yesterday when he uncovered a 4' cottonmouth. The brush hog took care of it. This area is notorious for cottonmouths. We've seen some doozies.....one was as big around as my forearm (he'd been run over on the highway). A couple years ago, I'd taken my poodledog for a potty walk when I spotted a snake on the fenceline. I yanked the leash and the dog came off the ground as I took off running. When DH came to investigate, he discovered the only reason the snake hadn't struck was because it had a baby rabbit in it's mouth :(

Several years back, I was driving down the highway from my DDs house, doing around 65 mph when I noticed something across the road ahead of me. I figured somebody had lost a fan belt or some such. When I got about a car's length from it, it reared up about 3' off the pavement. It was a whip snake. I swerved & missed it, but to this day, that image makes my skin crawl.

I know they have their purpose, but I must have been given a double dose of enmity, because no matter how small or harmless, they always creep me out.