Wow! How scary. Where are you located?

oh man, I am sure he will be back either for some eggs for breakfast of some tasty drum sticks of dinner.

Oh Sultry, I would be very scared too if that happened to me, I am very protective of my little dogs and snake bites,

It reminds me when I was walking one time in Scottsdale and saw across the street a humongous venomous snake, later it was in the news.

Silvia

In the Jax area but in a rual residential area on 3 1/2 acres of wooded land. It is heavily wooded on the back of the property and all woods behind us too, so good snake habitat lol. Now, if they would just all stay back there! haha

I made sure all the eggs were picked up from the coops so nothing would attract him. Im setting a live trap tonight with eggs in it but I doubt it will catch a snake lol.

I bet he could easily eat a chicken especially one of the smaller silkies or something. Silkies cant fly too well either due to thier 'silked feathers" not being like normal ones. I may need to add a finer type of wire around the bottom half chicken pens fencing so the snake cant squeeze through it.

What's funny is that, I didnt have my contacts in or my glasses on so at first I didnt see it (I'm nearsighted lol) I could hear it and saw a big brown blob that kinda matched the dirt and dry pine needles on the outside of the chicken coop fence which is 6 ft chain link wire. At first I thought, "What the heck, is that a huge hornets nest?" but of course the big black thing waving in the air didnt jive with that idea. Then I got a little closer and quickly realized, Oh no! Its a giant coiled up snake with a huge black tail rattling!! He sounded different than the rattle snakes Im used to. A more tinny type of rattle.

Sylvia, I bet that was big news in Scottsdale for a big snake to be seen. Usually they are out in the desert. My husbands grandparents had a house they built on a mountain in Cave Creek. One time a rattlesnake was up on the porch by the front door. My dh's granny clubbed it iver the head with a golf club LOL! I am not as brave as her.

YIKES! I'm so glad you and the dog are both o.k. Snakes usually try as hard as they can not to waste venom killing something too big to eat, so that's probably what saved you. Most people who are bit by venemous snakes either step on them or get bit trying to kill or move them.

If it's been eating eggs, it probably won't need to eat for awhile, so it may be awhile before you can catch it.

I don't know how none of us ever got bit by a rattler when we were small on my grandmother's island. I think it's because we were always so noisy, and scared them away. My sister was bit by a copperhead there as an adult and it made her very sick. She still has a bad scar on her leg from it. She was living in my grandmother's old house and the guy who cleared her land told her he had run over a ball of rattlers, so not to go out into her back yard for awhile. He said if she knew how many rattlers lived around her, she'd never leave her house. I never saw a rattler there growing up, unless someone had just killed one.

I've never seen a timber rattler, but I've seen some huge diamondbacks, usually after someone killed them. I have a friend who has a snake farm/exhibit. He has a couple of viper pits that are downright scary, especially the one with all the moccasins constantly swimming around in circles in the water.

I'm completely with sousd24 on this; We need to have these creatures around. Black plague anyone? We simply have got to retain these predators.....to keep ourselves healthy and safe. Even if you could care less about "nature", which I place in quotation marks because the reality of it all is we too are part of this nature, but we have made a mess of things.

Snakes, even timber rattlers and diamondback rattlers deserve to live.

Speaking of diamondbacks, a couple years ago, I was hiking trails on some of the land managed by C.R.E.W. Returning to my dad's car, parked in the lot, I almost stepped on a very large diamond back in the parking lot. Next thing I know, the snake goes under my car! So now I've got this big rattle snake under my dad's car, I'm looking to get into that car and drive away, but there's a big, valuable, but dangerous animal coiled up under the back tires.

I waved a palm frond around, trying to encourage the beast to seek other cover. IT took a while, and there were several hairy moments, but I got the big guy to leave, slithering off into the woods. A most impressive animal.

I have not seen the snake since that incident. Hopefully he will stay away. He was definitely impressive. I like snakes and he does seem very docile. He sure had a good long chance to bite the dog and didn"t. He could have also bit me at one point but didn't so that tells me he is not very aggressive at all and just wanted to get the heck outta there, which he did, the second we left lol.

I am thinking it was a male due to its really large size. I read the males are larger in these snakes. Dh raked the dirt around the coops so we could tell by his "tracks" slither marks or whatever you call them lol, if he returned. I havent seen any sign so far.

I wonder how long he has been around? A while or if he just recently showed up. We usually get large black snakes up around the coops once a year which do eat eggs that are non venomous. We just move them out to the woods and they dont come back for awhile. Maybe the Timber snake will also stay away.

Ive been dreaming about snakes the last few nights now lol.

Dirtygardener, wow your poor sister. I cant imagine being bit by a copperhead. That is really scary about all the rattlesnakes. I got bit by a Brown Recluse spider once while moving some boxes. I didn't even know until I developed an ulcer on my leg then remembered seeing that spider. It wasnt too bad so I was lucky. I still have a scar though.

About this snake, I'm not so worried about it being aggressive but kinda worried about some accident with it accidently being stepped on or the dog going after it. Our lab is an older girl but like I said, she is trained as a livestock guardian. She stays on our property and never strays even though she could because it is not all fenced. If I see the snake again, I might consider calling a herpatologist if I could find one but then I wonder about legal issues if that person was to be bitten on our property. I dont know if Fish and Game would come out for it or not.

In The Bahamas we don't have poisonous snakes (YET) but we do have Bahamian Boas which get pretty big. (Not huge like the Boas loose in Florida.) I welcome them as they eat rats and I'd rather put up with Boas than rats. However, I'm getting worried that they might harm a small child. We know they will eat kittens, from sad experience.