# copper head snake?



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

David walked up to the road to get the mail after sun went down yesterday and heard a rustling in the brush in ditch at side of road. He walked down the road to look. He saw something dark colored and it lunged at him snapping its jaws as David jumped back. David could see it was about 2-1/2 ft long and about 3" in diameter as it crawled away toward our old fallen-down shack not 50' from the mail box. Because of its length and thickness, David thought it might be a rattler; but it never rattled.

We have seen copper heads here before, a young one coming down the drive & two obviously full grown in the late, late (when it was already cold) fall trying to get warm under the door of our chicken house (where we had a heat lamp on for baby chicks).

We have been meaning to clean that shack up for years now; however, so many other things came up we could not put off, so now we suspect we have many (maybe even a den) under that shack. [We have large rocks from two old chimneys around that area too.]

Now my question: Any suggestions as to how best to get rid of these (maybe a den) without it costing a lot and without endangering ourselves?


----------



## Caz (Jun 29, 2002)

Put a fence around it and get yourself 2 pigs. When they have done in the snakes and anything else edible in there have some fresh pork. Seriously though pigs love to eat snakes. I used that technique when we first bought our house to get rid of copperhead dens & we still don't have any around here. I let my litters run when they are little so they travel the couple of acres around the house regularly. John


----------



## Old Swampgirl (Sep 28, 2008)

The copperheads around here are not lazy & they will rear up like a cobra & strike. They stay away from my house since I have a herd of cats, but before that they would try to get in the back door when I had a box of baby chick in the back room. Here they get pretty brown on their back & more copper colored on their sides & belly. Serious critters.


----------



## Navotifarm (Dec 16, 2009)

I have copperheads but so far they have seemed rather docile and torpid. Once I moved a bee hive cover that I had left on the ground awhile and eeek there was one under it. However, my chickens were out foraging and came running looking for worms. Two of them , to my horror, jumped on the snake and started scratching. The snake quickly slithered away. 
A diffferent kind of snake I have here is huge, with orange patches. That snake does rear up and threaten. It hisses and thrashes its tail but has no rattles. I searched the internet but could not find out its name. I took a photo to my photography club where a friend said it was a hog nose snake and not poisonous. 
That doesn't answr your question how to get rid of snakes but since we're sort of in the same area maybe you have hawgnoses AND copperheads. I have racer snakes and black snakes that kill my poultry and eat my eggs. Someone told me my orange-patch snakes are a variant of the rat snakes. I will watch this thread with enormous interest because I have had heavy losses to snakes plus I am mortally afraid of the poisonous ones since I live alone, have asthma, and if I get bitten I'm probably a goner and then what woild happen to my dogs and critters?
I would note that I took the fresh corpse of a big black snake to a neighbor who has pot belly pigs, thinking they'd enjoy a treat and they didn't seem remotely interested in eating it so I'd be interested in knowing what breed of pig is mostly likely to be snake chomper!


----------



## Jenn (Nov 9, 2004)

I think water moccasin or racer snake- the copeprheads I have or think I have met were not too grumpy but all the moccassins had an attitude and were cottonmouth indeed (opening the mouth to show the white while writhing around scarily)


----------



## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> Now my question: Any suggestions as to how best to get rid of these (maybe a den) without it costing a lot and *without endangering ourselves*?


You'll never "get rid of them", so the best way to avoid danger is leave them ALONE and be careful where you walk. Keep weedy areas mowed, and dont have piles of junk for them to hide in.

Most likely it was a *non poisonous *snake, since the description you gave really doesn't match a Copperhead

Most people are bitten while trying to KILL snakes


----------



## fantasymaker (Aug 28, 2005)

The copper head I used to have was a very bright PINK that matched the rocks where I found him.
They must vary a lot in color.


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

I am interested in knowing what breed of pig would actually kill these copperheads and "survive" in doing so.

This shack has to be clearred as it is an eye soar! We are planning on starting it and completing the project as soon as the weather is too cold for snakes to move fast. Since we will be having to do it by hand and there is noway I can move fast anymore, I am quite concerned about getting this shack cleared; but it has to be done. (There are rocks from 2 chimneys and 100 yr old floor beams still good I want to use for our road-side stand later on.)

[I am wondering how pigs could get in and under that shack to get rid of the snakes. Also, don't copperheads climb over fences? What type of fence would keep the pigs in and still "not" permit the snakes to escape. I have no doubt if they escape, they will head straight down the acreage toward our barn/house.]

I recall a neighbor in North Caroline purchasing her home and discovering it had was on top of a copperhead den. She found those snakes in her chest of drawers and all over the floors. She had to have a professional come out who placed a large sheeting over her entire house and pumped some type of gas in that killed out the den. It worked; but I remember her saying it was costly. (We cannot afford anything like that!)


----------



## goatlady (May 31, 2002)

I had a nest of coperheads underneath my house - had a cat step in it and die! There is a product on the market called Snake-Away which I sprinkled underneath my house all around the foundation 3 years ago and nary another copperhead has been found. It's mostly crushed moth balls mixed with something else, costs about $15 for a big jug and you only need to "sprinkle" a very thin (1" wide) line around a perimeter. The smell is extremely offensive to the copperhead and they will go away from it, so you might want to leave a break in your sprinkle line on the side you want them to leave on. I'm sure plain moth balls will work also but around here they are sellig for $3 for a 1# box which I think is outrageous and doesn't go as far as the Smake-Away stuff when sprinkling. Just my experience.


----------



## edcopp (Oct 9, 2004)

Have your local fire department burn your shack down for practice. Then clean up the site.:happy:


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

I've considered that edcopp; however, the shack has a 15' high peach tree growing up out of the middle of it, nice mature black walnut trees not 10' away and our electric line/pole less than 30' from it. 

I have a round container (about 12" high) of "Snake-Away"; however, ours is "sulfur". May try it anyway, leaving an opening on the street side so the snakes can cross over to the other property (maybe get hit by cars in the crossing).


----------



## Pops2 (Jan 27, 2003)

wait until deep into winter then tear the shack/pile apart.
also copperhead venom isn't as deadly as cottonmouth & rattler. it burns like the dickens & makes you so sick you'll wish you were dead. but after a few days you'll get better. it is only real dangerous if you tend toward anaphylactic shock from bees & such. it is also deadly for small children & people that are already sick or weakened. but for healthy adults it is just ---- miserable getting bit.


----------



## MELOC (Sep 26, 2005)

copperheads do vary greatly in color. the last one i saw, very clearly from just a few feet for several minutes while leaning on a walking stick, was a light gray with a burnished copper head. it had the markings on it's back, the vertical slit pupils and triangular head. i was in his back yard at the time, so i walked away and left him alone.


----------



## mountainlaurel (Mar 5, 2010)

A juvenile black snake can look like a copperhead because you can still see faint diamond shapes on it's back. It would be darker than an adult copperhead though.
And a black snake will do as you describe if threatened. My husband has had them strike at him numerous times when he's gone in someone's old house to fix their plumbing and he is working behind the drywall. He pulled several black snakes out from behind a lady's kitchen sink once that were back in the wall when he cut through it to get to her pipes.

Water moccasions don't live that far north. But they are nasty too.
Copperheads a lighter in color and fatter. I would say a black snake or a black racer is much more aggressive than a copperhead.

Cats are good to have around. Some folks say sprinkling mothballs around will make snakes leave. I don't know for sure though


----------



## Queen Bee (Apr 7, 2004)

When we first purchased our farm back from relatives (who had let it go--piled trash/building materials, let barns fall in etc) We were over run w/ copperheads.. We spent many many hours getting everything off the ground--anything they could hide under.. Since snakes eat mice/rats--We cleaned up anything that might draw mice/rats--old corn, seeds, feed. And we mowed and 'bush/hogged' everything w/ in several 1000feet of the house. And the dogs help to 'find' the snakes before they find us... It's been 12yrs and we still have copperheads come thur the yard several times of yr.. 

When we had to clean up around a fallen down barn we waited until the coldest part of the year--used hoes/rakes to pull rocks out before we handled them!


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Yes, we will wait until we are certain it has been cold enough for long enough. 

I went out to take another look at what I thought was "snake-away". It wasn't! It was "rattlesnake brand" of sulphur. So when we get to town this week, I will pick up some snake away.

David says he is certain it was a copperhead. (I didn't see it; but I am thinking it might have been a moccasin. I think moccasins are agressive too and they are darker colored than copperheads. However, that old shack is nowhere near water; so maybe I'm wrong.)


----------



## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> I will pick up some *snake away*


It's a waste of money.
None of those products really do anything at all


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Bearfootfarm, I am confused as to how you can say "none of those products really do anything at all" when others have testified as to their experience in those products working. Did you use "Snake Away" and it did not work for you? (Maybe if I knew how you used it as opposed to how others have used it, I will be better informed as to how to use it in a way that will work.)


----------



## Haven (Aug 16, 2010)

When I was little my dad's family would always tell me that if I smelled cucumbers to run away because that is what copperheads smell like. Is this true, or an old wives tale?


----------



## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> Bearfootfarm, I am confused as to how you can say "none of those products really do anything at all" when others have testified as to their experience in those products working


I'd be willing to bet not one of those others actually saw a snake crawl up to it and then turn around.

They may have put it down, and then not seen a snake later, but that's *not proof *of it working at all.

I found a Hog Nosed Snake in the yard a few years ago.
I didn't DO anything at all, and haven't seen another one since.
Does that PROVE that "doing nothing" keeps snakes away?


----------



## dixieland (Feb 19, 2010)

That is true,No doubt. Do ya know if ya whip a blacksnake with a switch and really make it mad it will turn lighter in color. Do ya know that a Bear smells, like a Horse smells when it is sweaty


----------



## Navotifarm (Dec 16, 2009)

Maybe you could do a search on the internet as to the effectiveness of snake repellent? I was trying to find a spray that would kill them and spent several hours. At some point I found a big long series of entries testifying that repellents did not work. Cannot remember where now, sorry! Maybe it was a snake trap site. I have caught them in buckets I had rat glue boards in and garden netting which I had stored in a shed. They seem to crawl in the rolls of netting and then can't get out again. The snake trap as I recall uses a glue board and a tricky path. Of all the sprays I saw, one recommended a fire extinguisher to foam the snake to make it cold so it can't move and then presumably you can kill it with whatever weapon you have to hand. Except for some information about Texans, I never found anything about snake dens. Maybe you could make a recording of baby chicks peeping and put it in a snake trap with a warm light bulb?


----------



## fixer1958 (Dec 12, 2005)

Take a dog with you. Copperheads have a stink. It has saved me a few times.
When the dog jumps, I do too.


----------



## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

Well, seems I'm left with the resolution David came up with, i.e. wait until the weather has been cold enough long enough; then clean up the shack. Hopefully we will find them; and hopefully, it won't be many.

Thank you all for helping.


----------



## Navotifarm (Dec 16, 2009)

Much as I detest snakes, I feel a little sorry about your killing them. Where are all the folks who were shrieking with outrage about MY killing my bird-killing snakes? Do you have a nearby university or contact for a herpetologist? Maybe you could have a crew come collect them? There are places where snakes are milked for their venom to make, what's it called, "anti-venin?" Snake bite serum. Perhaps you could get rid of your snakes, save their lives and, through the chain of events save some other lives, too? Your local pharmacist should be able to tell you which phamaceutical company makes anti-venin and if you call them, after you,ve been shuffled around some, you can find out the laboratory that keeps snakes and offer them yours. Maybe you can even SELL them your snakes and get rich. Maybe there's a snake handling church near you who could come out with a collection basket. My local craigslist has someone advertising he wants snakes fairly often. You seem like a nice person and I would hate to have you get bitten in your DIY winter snake round-up. Surely there's somebody in your area who can handle this for you? It's sorta fun swapping possibilities on this forum but for actualities I hope you get somebody besides you to deal with these snakes.


----------



## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

> Maybe you can even SELL them your snakes and get rich


That's illegal in lots of places
It's also too dangerous to try to handle poisonous snakes.

It's best to just leave them alone


----------

