Another Episode of "Biotop: Bad Copperhead Slayer"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

It is Monday afternoon. I had been playing online Mafia most of the day, and my wife was due home soon. I had promised to cut the grass, so was feeling a bit rushed. I first hit the grass on the side of the house, no problem. Then I went around into the fenced in back yard. I had just started cutting the grass when I saw it: another damn copperhead snake. And not just any copperhead, but the mother of all copperheads. Huge. Fat. I am guessing close to five feet long.

It’s slithering up against the side of the house and trying to get out unnoticed.

Now I am a peaceful guy. Those snakes have acres of woods and streams behind our house and I believe in letting them have that area. But when Mr./Mrs. Copperhead decides to come into my yard where my dogs and cat hang out… well then we have an issue that I am going to try and resolve unfavorably for the copperhead.

I have posted before about my failed attempt to kill one of these guys last year. That time I chased it with my lawn mower and it disappeared under the deck. Not good. So I was not going to let this one get away. Thing is, I don’t really want to get bit either, and our shovel has way too short a handle for my liking for use in killing a venomous snake of this size. With my pumping adrenaline I am seeing monster king cobra, not copperhead.

So the lawn mower it is again. The snake is up against the side of the house between the rain barrel on the left, and our propane tank on the right. So with motor blaring, I shove my Toro against the side of the house, but it is no good. I can’t get the blade close enough and the snake writhes up the wall and then behind the propane tank. I back off and the snake reverses itself and heads along the side of the house towards the rain barrel and another safe haven. Once again I thrust the mower to no avail.

But I seem to have angered the snake. It starts to curl up now a little bit away from the house. This is my chance. I push the roaring lawn mower over the snake, hold it there for a moment, and pull back. There is nothing there.

Now I do not believe my mower could have vaporized the snake. Could it somehow be up inside the mower? Carelessly I stop the mower and flip it over. Nothing. A snake hiding inside a running lawn mower? What a stupid idea.

Now I do not know what to think. The snake was so big. How could it just vanish? Cautiously I examine the ground where it was. The area has just a little bit of a sink in the soil. I think the snake might have been too low for the lawn mower blades to reach it. But where did it go. Uh oh, there is what appears to me to be a cavity below the propane tank large enough for the snake to have taken refuge. When I thrust the mower over the snake perhaps it was able to sneak in there without me noticing. Probably *it could *have got in there while I thought it was still under the whirring mower. What to do now? Should I poke in the hole with an end of a rake. That would surely bring out an angry ready-to-bite snake. More puzzling.

Then I got an idea. We have the big can of wasp killer in the house? If I spray that poison into the hole I might blind the snake and force it out to face me and the lawn mower again. So I go inside and get the spray. I come out and try to start the lawn mower again. But probably because I had flipped the mower upside down before it will not start now. Grr. So I wait. And think. And I wait some more.

After about five minutes I finally get the mower started up. I approach the hole, aim the can, and start spraying, ready to jump back when my enemy appears. Nothing happens. I spray more. I empty the spray can into the hole. Nothing. Now I am really mad and I go fetch the rake. I start poking around into the hole below the propane tank base, Nothing again.

I wait for about a half hour, confused and vigilant. My wife comes home and we both try and figure out what happened to the Houdini 5-foot copperhead. The snake that was there one moment and then gone the next. The only thing I can figure is that it slithered off quickly when I went inside to get the Raid can. But it would have had to cover a lot of ground to be unseen, and I was gone for only a couple of minutes, if that.

So it is now two days later and I have been checking the yard every time before letting the dogs out. Anybody with fresh ideas on how to kill a copperhead, let me know. I am thinking of splashing it with Drano next time.

2

Get a larger shovel. You’re not going to Rube Goldberg your way into dead copperheads.

But please keep telling the stories if you try. :slight_smile:

3

Was it in fact a copperhead? We used to have a neighbor who identified every single snake he ever saw as “copperhead for sure” and killed them and threw them into our yard to “prove” he was saving us from copperheads.

My mother’s relatives were all snake-phobic and they universally feared copperheads, to the point of several incidents of chopping up electrical extension cords with a hoe.

Every time I am with people hiking and we see a rat snake, they desperately want it to be a copperhead so they have a cool story to tell about escaping death. Except that in reality it’s a rat snake, or a corn snake, or a garter snake, or a hognose snake, or a black snake, or a black racer, or really anything at all.

Maybe you’re really good at identifying copperheads, and I might owe you an apology. But my experience tells me the statistical odds of that are low.

4

I know these snakes. Around here we have garters, blacks, corn snakes, some kind of big brown snake, and a little snake with a ring around its neck too. I always wish them “good Day” and move on. I am confident it was a copperhead right down to its big fat ugly pit-viper large head.

I have owned a ball python, and with other guys back in college we kept a boa and a regular python. Snakes have always interested me.

5

If you live in copperhead territory you probably have other unfriendly critters. Get yourself one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Benjamin-392-Action-Variable-Rifle/dp/B002J1OZ8G

A classic style Benjamin Air Rifle. You pump it up to your desired power. 5 or 6 pumps and it will shoot right through 1/4 plywood. It isn’t a firearm, you don’t need to do all the song and dance associated with buying a gun. You just order it.

It will take care of your small varmint needs without disturbing the neighbors. This one is like mine, wood and brass. It won’t rust and needs no cleaning or maintenance. I have had one for over 30 years and it still works like new. It seems a bit spendy, but so will a snake bite to your family or a vet bill for your pets.

If you are trying to get the snake with a lawn mower or shovel, you are getting too close. Nuke 'em from orbit, or shoot them from 10 feet away. It’s the only way to be sure.

6

I second the recommendation for a longer handled shovel. Maybe two: One to pin it down. One to dispatch it.

You might also want to read up on how to handle venomous snakes around the home… My experience is mostly with constrictors. I worked at a zoo. Strictly speaking then, my experience wasn’t in killing them.

Good luck.

7

I’m curious now: what combo of shed tools will kill a copper-head w/o risking a poisonous bite?

The OP suggested a rake (I’m guessing a bow rake, not a leaf rake), maybe to pin the head to the ground so a second tool could decapitate it?

A wood ax alone would be silly, inaccurate and dangerous… and after you missed while swinging for the fences, you’d probably get bitten.
A hoe seems too small (and many now are of light aluminum).
A heavy duty shovel could catch its neck and if it was a flat-head shovel, maybe stepping on the back of the shovel’s blade and adding full body weight would kill it?

8

Yes, a bow rake and flat bladed shovel could work.

A snake that size can be very strong and move quickly. Perhaps the OP should consider thick boots or a rider mower?

Other options: very large rocks, hurled from a safe distance. (Yes, I can hear Monty Python faintly in the distance, ignore them.)

I’m wondering if the snake did go under the house…

Does the OP have a gun? Does the OP know how to use this gun? This does seem to be one of those occasions in which gun use might be warranted.

9

No gun. But that air rifle looks like a workable solution. I will see what my wife thinks.

Latest crazy scheme: What if I were to toss a bag of ice on the snake? Would that slow it down at all so that I could go after it with the shovel?

10

The good news is, there are no wasps under your propane tank.

11

I shot one that frightened Mrs. Plant (v.2.0) with a .45. Next time I will use a shotgun. I thought I could hit the head at twelve feet, but it took seven shots with it wriggling about. Mrs. Plant’s (v.2.0) screaming was somewhat distracting. (She isn’t from around here.)

12

C’mon sunny & Count Blucher; axes & shovels? Didja read the OP where multiple times he talks about the propane tank?
You can dispatch the snake & make dinner all at the same time with a little snake flambé.

13

Or pick up the tank and use that as the squishing device. :smiley:

Shotgun is probably a better choice. I’m thinking airgun might just anger it. :dubious:

14

Anti-venin also occurs to me as a worthwhile investment. Just a thought.

15

Can you buy that, and keep it around the house for an extended period of time?

16

I have never heard of a snake aggressively attacking. We have lived out here 10+ years and mostly the snakes just want to get away whenever they are seen. Our neighbor’s golden retriever was bitten once, and her head swelled up like a Thanksgiving Day balloon, but the dog survived.

I am mostly worried about our pets. The older 2 dogs are not my biggest concern, they seldom seem to care much about anything but food and sleep. But our youngest is smaller and stupid, always getting into trouble. Our cat mostly lives outdoors. She was a stray and seems savvy to the ways of the wild world. At least that is my hope.

Supposedly one can leave wet burlap sacks around and the copperheads will go inside and then one can attack the sacks with a shovel or ax. But my wife finds this idea ludicrous.

17

Here in Oz, it is NOT recommended you administer antivenom yourself. If you have been bitten and poisoned, your body is likely to go into some form of shock, and then adding to that by self-administering a random quantity of a powerful medicine (which is mildly toxic in it’s own right), is risky - unless you know what you are doing, and have access to resuscitation equipment.

Antivenom is also matched to the snake. If you are not 100% sure what snake it is, it is usually better to do a rapid analysis of existing blood pathogens to get some idea of which antivenom to use.

Learn basic First-Aid for snakebite and leave the complicated bit to the experts.

As a side note, are copperheads rated as highly poisonous in the US? (Checks Wikipedia). I see - completely unrelated to the Australian copperhead. That explains it - we occasionally used to see them around the local creek where I grew up, and one or two would sneak into someone’s back shed if the weather got really cold. But we never thought they were that dangerous.

18

I hereby withdraw my antivenin suggestion. (It was a bit tongue in cheek, given Biotop’s determination to flip over items looking for the snake.) Be safe out there people!

19

What’s the deal with those little snake lassoes you see in the movies? I don’t see how they could work. Seems like a large wild venomous viper wouldn’t be that compliant in letting itself get snagged with the riata.

20

I’m not sure we should be encouraging you…

In all seriousness, when I worked with snakes at the zoo (non-poisonous) we did use large, heavy canvas bags when we were moving them around. I wouldn’t recommend that you march out and try this with your local copperhead. The idea with most lasso-based capture techniques is that if you control the head, you control the animal. You’ll also see people use them to hold animal’s mouths shut to prevent bites (alligators, for example). You might want to review capture techniques with a local expert before trying them on a wild specimen.

In other words, there’s only so much we can teach you about how to catch snakes over the internet. YouTube might help, at least with visuals.

Any idea what is attracting them to your house? Rats maybe? One option you might consider is getting rid of the attractant(s) or minimizing them. If it’s rats, get rid of the rats. Seal your foundation and crawl spaces, etc. Next after that would be discouraging the snakes. You might need to talk to a local snake/vermin control person on that. For example, do snakes hate orange oil (totally bull-shitting on that one) and could you sprinkle that about?