Are yours a little aggressive st times or are they like that just here in Kansas? They hold their ground here and take a bit at times.
They are like lazy fat bulldogs. They rarely rattle at me, even when prodded with a stick.
They leave, but do so slowly. The moccasins are what gets my heart pumping. The copperheads are flighty and quicker, but they just want to get away in the end.
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There are snakes that will flee and do everything they can to get away from you before they bite (the coral snake) and there are others that will stand their ground if you startle them. But, there are no snakes here in the US that WANT to bite you. It takes a lot of energy to make the venom and the snakes would rather use it on something they can actually eat that will replenish those calories. It just makes no sense for them to go after people unless they perceive you as a threat to their life. Then, they will strike in self-defense.
I have never heard a story of someone happening near a snake, then slowly and carefully retreating, that got bitten. Can it happen? Sure, I guess. Never say never and all that. But the vast majority of snake bites are from people who messed with the snake.
Interesting note about the coral snake: so few people got bitten that they stopped making the anti-venin. (Just try not to be the unlucky sap that DOES get bitten, lol.)
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Those of you who live with poisonous snakes everyday my hat is off to you. They may be just protecting themselves but they do that in such a way they appear agrresive. Maybe they would dry bite me and not waste their poison but my money is not on that. Thankfully for them and me they are not my problem at the moment. Back to my vole problem hopefully I wonāt get that kind of help.
I just thought about something. I have never seen a venomous snake in my main orchard area, even with the amount of voles there. Iāve seen a few rat snakes and king snakes. Iāve seen plenty of venomous snakes in the surrounding areas. Most Southerners kill every venomous (and sometimes non-venomous) snake they see. Iām definitely unique in my beliefs.
With that being said, I would never prod a cottonmouth. I usually end up hurting myself trying to get away from them. Maybe, they were confused and just happened to āappearā to chase me. I just care nothing for them. Thankfully, I have never seen one on the property.
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To many times people say that cottonmouths wonāt come after you like in this web article http://www.livingalongsidewildlife.com/2013/03/are-cottonmouths-aggressive.html?m=1. They defend their territory aggressively in my opinion. No matter what experts say about their non aggressiveness like the timber rattlers here leave them alone and stay out of their territory and they leave you alone. Go where the wild ones are it may end badly. You seem to have made pets of yours and they are not afraid of you or aggressive towards you.
No one observes the world objectively and our reason is pulled by our emotions. Vipers evoke fear in a very primal way, their eyes are cold and their poison lethal. If you are raised in a snake hating culture your interpretation is not going to be the same as someone like me, whose father was a city person who worshiped nature in the manner of a spiritual tourist. He moved his family in the middle of nature for that very reason and interpreted everything in it like a smitten romantic.
We all inhabit our separate realities. If I was any kind of snake, but with a human mind, I would consider human beings to be the devil incarnate. Snakes kill 5 human beings a year in this country- no one keeps records of how many snakes humans kill.
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luckily we donāt have poisonous snakes here. but even the garter and milk snakes we have, i do my best to keep them out of harm. Iāve never been bitten by a snake and Iāve handled dozens in my life. they can sense if youāre a threat and mean them harm by your body language. i can hold for a few minutes any wild snake Iāve picked up. they donāt try and get away but instead just sit on my hand and check me out. others that are unsure or nervous usually get bit. Iāve never tested this on a poisonous snake and wouldnāt want to as id be a lot more nervous, but i bet if you could control that fear the results would be the same. i had a 7ft. 50lb. red tailed boa about 10yrs. ago. he never tried to bite me, even when he was hungry. when id open his cage id lightly tap him on the head to let him know it was me and not dinner. in summer id put him on the lawn for fresh air. my daughter would make sure he wouldnāt get into the woods and she would pull him back on the lawn. never tried to bite or strike at her.
Absolutely, Alan. My father wasnāt a āback to natureā guy, but he had absolute respect for all life. He hated to kill anything, and would only do so out of necessity, but even then, it would deeply grieve him. I learned from my fatherās example, and try to take the same view.
That being said, if I had grown up under different circumstances, I would undoubtedly feel differently. I recognize that poisonous snakes are a bone of contention and know oneās experience can sway one to one side or another. That being said, I can only hope that people consider the necessity of killing it vs leaving it alone, and if they decide to kill it, they do it swiftly and with a minimum of pain.
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Well, maybe not always, Check out Wikiās list of snake bit fatalities and you will see many who were killed were either experienced snake handlers or snakes being used in religious ceremonies, in one case by a Pentecostal minister who had likely been handling rattle snakes for years.
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When my kids were growing up, I always told them we were the tyrannosaurus rex of the animal kingdom.
Imagine how imposing and fearful we must seem to all but the biggest animals. And we are so much more a dread predator than even they realize, with an intellect far beyond their own, and much more menacing than our size.
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BambooMan - Just FYI, those all appear to be pictures of field rats, not voles. Voles are smaller with short, furry tails - while rats are larger with long, hairless onesā¦
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Interesting, thanks for the heads up. I looked through all the species of rodents in Georgia. The only one that matches my pictures is the Hispid Cotton Rat http://icwdm.org/handbook/rodents/CottonRat.asp.
I donāt think Iāve ever seen a vole on my farm. Either way, these guys are very prolific and damaging according to the link.
Maybe the title of this thread should be āThe Hispid Cotton Rats are Out.ā
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Wow, I should have caught that. The grizzly pictures turned away my stare. I actually thought we were talking about moles. Now Iām wondering why someone would use a trap like that rather than this, which works for rats and chipmunks for me every time.
theyāre all evil lilā plant chewing machines!
Durability and longevity are the main reasons I use these traps. Iāve seen some fairly small mouse sized rodents caught in the #1 coil springs. I have set quite a few smaller victor snap traps and they just donāt seem to last in comparison. I do keep my traps out nearly all year. These coil springs will probably last longer than me. At $5 a piece thatās a great deal IMO.
I love how multi-functional these #1 coil springs are. They work on rats, rabbits, small mouse sized rodents, squirrels and larger pests like possums that get past my high tensile electric fence into the orchard. By the way, a possum can do a surprising amount of damage to an Asian persimmon tree. It did take me a few tries to learn how to make these traps extremely sensitive, but now I love them.
For you it is a good choice, Iām sure. I use those traps for woodchucks sometimes and find them more time consuming to set. Iām an hour from NYC so time and money are a different equation here than most places. I also only use traps in spring and fall.
Yea, in the name of accuracy, you should update the title, lol!
And also, just keep in mind that opossums are not merely āroadkillā or āpests,ā as commonly categorized. They are actually one of the planetās most extraordinary creatures! For instance, they walked the Earth with the DINOSAURS 70 million years ago and are the only marsupials in North America. And for your purposes, although they do eat fruitā¦they also eat snails, slugs, MICE, RATS, and an estimated 5000 TICKS per season!
Yetā¦whatās particularly troubling now is that humans have already killed off about 50% of wildlife globally in just the past 40 YEARS! So, animals that survived the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, Ice Ages, floods, etc. etc. - may now finally go extinct due toā¦US! I donāt know about you, but to me the thought of a future, sterile world without natural wildlife is horrifying and shameful!
Weāve already taken all their land, and donāt want them touching any of our food. So, whatās left for all the wildlife out there?
Anyhow, just a wider perspective and something to think aboutā¦
BTW, thereās also a number of beautiful plants that help to repel all manner of rodents. Havenāt tried these myself yet, but even in the worst caseā¦you would simply have prettier flowerbeds!
And Crown Imperials [Fritillaria imperialis] come with two disclaimers. One concerns the fragrance, which is perhaps best called an odor. Gardeners have variously described it as a combination of wet fur and garlic, phenolic, putrid, sulfurous, sweaty, and foxy. To my nose itās definitely skunky. What the smell does deter is the presence of moles, mice, and other rodents. Even deer will avoid them. While we have an abundance of moles and deer in the area, none of them has ever come near a bed with Crown Imperials in it. Like other fritillaries, Crown Imperials prefer a temperate climate (zones 5a through 8b), loose, well-drained soils with even moisture while theyāre growing, then fairly dry conditions when the tops die down.
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When I read that I was surprised that opossums ate ticks. Being a skeptic, I did some research on that and now Iām a believer. Also eating slugs, mice and rats is useful. They did eat most of my gooseberries last year but a mechanical barrier should solve that problem.
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I am definitely a proponent of wildlife management, but Iām also a realist. Possums are classified as being of least concern when it comes to their protection status. In fact, their range is expanding further north due to warmer temperatures. My pastures/orchards are fenced to exclude wildlife, but sometimes they squeeze through. Animals are clever enough to find their way back to a huge source of food. I am not open to consuming fruit from a tree that may contain possum waste, which may host a wide array of pathogens. Opossums carry diseases such as leptospirosis, tuberculosis, relapsing fever, tularemia, spotted fever, toxoplasmosis, coccidiosis, trichomoniasis, and Chagas disease. They may also be infested with fleas, ticks, mites, and lice. Opossums are hosts for cat and dog fleas, especially in urban environments.
http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74123.html
Believe me, I do not go out of my way to run these guys down or hunt them. I have a close friend whose horse contracted Equinbe Protozoal Myeloencephalitis from possum waste. In a perfect world, I would have live traps and try relocation. I guess for me it boils down to time, money, risk and effectiveness. I have high tensile and woven wire fence around 12 or so acres. I purchased a 32 joule (very pricey) fence charger to both contain my animals and exclude wildlife. Individually protecting every plant is impossible from a financial perspective. I like the idea of planting things to repel pests, but on a broad scale that would take a very long time.
I do love the fact that possums eat rodents and ticks, but there is definitely no shortage of possums around here.
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