some friends I met today

[threeforthree]

nothing makes my skin crawl as these things , have nothing but respect for them ,,tell you right now I have a great zoom on my camera..lololl

[IR_mike]

Neat pics, thanks for posting.

[BGSH]

is that the rattle snakes near drumheller?

[Stinky Coyote]

don't think your allowed to keep local wildlife as pets, just sayin, just in case

it sure is more entertaining if you run live traps for mice around haystacks and catch wild 'fast' ones as compared to the store bought duds, don't ask me how i learned about that back in my teen days when i tried to make pets of anything i could catch....half a life ago now, i bet the denning area i found is still there though, held up a bull snake that was probably solid 8-9' long and baseball or better in diameter one day...she was entirely too big and prime breeding stock so i just put her back down....man can those big girls hiss! that deep never ending hiss will put the hair up on your neck even when you keep snakes as pets etc.

the neat part about finding the denning area way back was just before i stumbled into it (not far off a road near a good looking spot for a pee break) i started seeing hats on the ground, ball caps, even a down under looking hat, probably saw 4-5 hats laying in the weeds and started thinking how weird that was.....then about 10 rattlers around denning holes all start rattling at the same time at about 25' away....thats when i understood why all the hats were there lol, they sure wondered wtf when i ran at them instead of away from them as i was lookin for em, the bugger off down the holes like gophers and i had some time to come up with a strategy then....oh the good ole days

[diamonddave]

You, my friend, are certifiablely a nut job.....

[Stinky Coyote]

lol, check my edit re: when i found the denning area and the hats...i still giggle about that

[Stonecutter]

Nice photos and all, but I'm glad they're YOUR friends... You can keep 'em all to yourself.

[TheClash]

got bit by a rattle snake last summer....

[Alberta Bigbore]

^^did you have a friend to suck out the poison? lol

[TheClash]

lol, nope but I freaked my wife out at 2am when I asked her to take me to the ER room.

Luckily I was bit by a juvenile prairie rattle snake and the amount of venom they found in my blood stream was minimal. Did cause my calf to swell up pretty big and the bite area got all oozy and yucky (I have pics if ya like lol)

This happened at the northside dog park in lethbridge...really hot day in a really hot week. I was walking to the river with my dog through some grass and I thought I stepped on a stick that somehow flipped up and smacked me in the back of me leg.....it wasn't till later that night when I started to get a fever, chills, aches and my leg was hot and the bite spot was starting to swell that I thought "something is off here"...ya, I'm that quick lol....so we examined the area and sure enough, two small puncture wounds....off to the ER...luckily the lethbridge ER has/had a lady DR. there that is somewhat of an expert on snake bites. Some blood work was done...venom was confirmed but just in minor amounts...and off i went with some antibiotics of some sort and a cool story lol.

[Loki610]

Originally Posted by TheClash

really hot day in a really hot week.

I don't remember anything like that last summer!

[TheClash]

sorry wrote last summer meant summer before last..woops, bad fingers lol.

[Stinky Coyote]

a friend got bit on the hand by a bigger one and spent a few days in hospital but went in a little late, he puffed up to above the bicep and things getting a little close to the core so there were some tense times and the pain/swelling for a while was quite unreal apparently, blow up a rubber glove with air and that was his hand, the arm was the same...ouch, i only had close calls, but a couple was enough and i quit playing with them as odds would be against eventually

my favorite snake as a pet was kenyan sand boa(i had many types of snakes of all sizes when i was young), think of the movie tremors and you get the idea, didn't get too big to require anything other than mice for food and made for a cool tank, desert landscape, very neat looking also, mild mannered etc. but the fact they generally live under the sand and moved under the sand was neat....they learn quickly that mice in a tank will cruise the edges of the glass so they set up their ambush along the walls and its incredible how fast they explode on the first mouse that runs over them, a mouse could be running full bore and a poof of sand and next thing you saw was a ball of snake with some bits of mouse sticking out here and there...its speed to do that was faster than any snake movement i had seen, not even wild rattlers striking at wild mice comes close to how fast that happens with the sand boa

[SammyIam]

Stinky-
You remind me of Tom Green feeding the snake on Road Trip.

I have had lots of run-ins with them, but luckily haven't been bit.
Stepped out of the boat to take a leak on the bank one time, unzipped, and p***ed right on one without seeing it. It took off quick.

[walking buffalo]

A Bull snake cost me a hat once.

I was setting up a camp by the Milk River, down in a coulee. After about five trips up and down the path past a rock that was head hight, the wind shifted and I could hear a "rattlin" right by my ear!

Jumping back 30' in a single bound, my cap flew off and the breeze blew it to Saskatchewan.

Back at the rock, I found this little Bull catching some rays....

[SammyIam]

Bull snakes can rattle?

[walking buffalo]

No, Bull Snakes make a vocalization that mimics the sound of a Rattler. A defensive adaptation.... and it Works...

[diamonddave]

I stand behind my first clinical assesment there Stinky....... Don't fight against the men in white when they come in the unmarked panel van

[threeforthree]

[
[/QUOTE]

LOVE THAT PIC

[Ken07AOVette]

I much prefer meeting Mudbug and Lola!

[fordtruckin]

kill them all!! Snakes are just unnatural!

[TheClash]

I was posting some pics of my dogs and figured I might as well put these up..









these are from about 4-6 days after the bite occurred....was still pretty painful to walk, kind of a stiff sore feeling...after this it got really messy and I didn't want any pics to remember it by lol.

[dollfin]

Clash I am so glad you posted the pics cuz I wanted to see them! Yipes, I am glad you got better! Freaky! I only like non poisonous snakes!

Each year we go out to Kootenay Lake outside of Creston, my parents in law have a cabin out there across from the lake and omg there are snakes everywhere, even swimming in the freaking lake! Seen about three different kinds out there so far and not sure what they are. Garders are everywhere, but I will have to research what others are out there! Anyone, know? I sooo don't ever want to get bit by a snake!

[Pudelpointer]

Geez Clash, that looks pretty oozy. The sore looks square? Why is that?

I have heard a few stories from Prairie Rattler bites, and they all sound pretty similar. Puffy, oozy, time to heal. Don't think anyone has died directly from a snake bite in AB for a very long time (maybe ever).


FWIW, last year we saw a fair number of snakes in the south. We saw a couple big ones while working on Antelope Fencing down near Manyberries. Really neat to see. I have some pics from out near Suffield a few years back. Will see if I can find them.

[dollfin]

http://www.bcreptiles.ca/more_rattlers.htm

[TheClash]

Originally Posted by Pudelpointer

Geez Clash, that looks pretty oozy. The sore looks square? Why is that?

I have heard a few stories from Prairie Rattler bites, and they all sound pretty similar. Puffy, oozy, time to heal. Don't think anyone has died directly from a snake bite in AB for a very long time (maybe ever).


FWIW, last year we saw a fair number of snakes in the south. We saw a couple big ones while working on Antelope Fencing down near Manyberries. Really neat to see. I have some pics from out near Suffield a few years back. Will see if I can find them.

no idea why it took on a square look..it was the oddest thing for sure.

The Dr. that treated me said that no one she can recall has ever died from a prairie rattler bit in Alberta.

It was interesting to see the progression of the wound etc. The best thing is it kicked me up a few notches on the coolest uncle scale for sure..plus I can't wait to tell my boys about it when they get old enough haha.

[dollfin]

three,
thanks for sharing the pics, those are awesome shots, where was this rattle snake? yipes?

[Stinky Coyote]

Originally Posted by walking buffalo

A Bull snake cost me a hat once.

I was setting up a camp by the Milk River, down in a coulee. After about five trips up and down the path past a rock that was head hight, the wind shifted and I could hear a "rattlin" right by my ear!

Jumping back 30' in a single bound, my cap flew off and the breeze blew it to Saskatchewan.

Back at the rock, I found this little Bull catching some rays....

great pic, i liked bull snakes too, not really fish tank friendly though, they are super strong super athletic and they never quit trying to get out, they push your nicely set up habitat all to the middle in a big mound, great fast constrictors though, i quit trying to make pets out of them too, have caught about 1/2 dozen of them, a few little guy like that one, a 3 and 4 footer i can remember and the big big girl i mentioned, i forgot about the rattle imitation, i think they do rattle their tail but i forget how it smacks stuff to buzz? if they use dry vegitation or surroundings or what but i usually just got hissing, my memory sucks though there is something about that rattle imitation tweaking my memory, beautiful snakes though

i know they can grow an eye back though, my 4 footer had a brutal scrap with a giant angry hamster that put a lot of holes in him, this hamster had successfully defended itself from a much fatter 4' python from a friend and in a five gallon bucket you look at the hamster and it would stand up and growl at you like it was a grizzly bear, it was heavy gloves handling and full brawling with that fat furball, the bull had to give up although he constricted it unconscious after the brutal main battle he didn't hang on long enough and it came too as he was about to start on the nose and then they just went to opposite corners of the tank, thats when a fist reigned down from above with lots of crunching in instant death, i thought i was lucky not to punch through the bottom of the 48 gallon tank, i was pretty steamed at that hamster by that point, a few minutes later the bull ate the dead hamster and after he shed his next skin he had both his eyes again.....the giant bull i let go was missing probably 1 to 1.5' feet of its tail also, easily a 9' footer if it still had all its tail, that would have been one serious nightmare to the local gopher populations!

[walking buffalo]

As I understand it, Bull snakes mimic Rattlesnake warning sounds through vocalization, and they do rattle their tail at the same time .

The Bull in the picture was about 3' long.


One summer I looked after my Elemetary school's Bull snake, a solid 4 footer, named Bully.

The family was going to our cabin at the Shuswap for a couple of weeks, so just before we left I dropped a pinky mouse into the aquarium for the snake When we got back from the cabin, the first thing I did was check on Bully.

Bully had a roommate, a half grown mouse, and the snake was less than 4' long.

[Toirtis]

Originally Posted by Stinky Coyote

...the giant bull i let go was missing probably 1 to 1.5' feet of its tail also, easily a 9' footer if it still had all its tail, that would have been one serious nightmare to the local gopher populations!

I can believe that...I caught, recorded and released a male bull in 1996 near the Oldman river that was 236cm/92.9" long.