Question about Texas rattlesnakes!!!

They are there just more places for them to hide in the hillcountry. Rocks big rocks and dense cedar. After flash floods when the ground is pretty wet brings them out so they can warm and dry out. In the section of ranch land in Bulverde-Bexar area that my uncle leased in the 70’s thru the 90’s a saw only one that I could remember. It was in a dry creek bed that ran down into the Cibolo creek when I was going down to retrieve a cow that broke her leg and died when she slipped on some boulders. It was strange It was like the rattler was guarding her body. It rattled long before I saw it but it went under the boulders after awhile and kept rattling till I got the chain around the cow to pull her out with a winch.

 

So have you decided if Texas is too filled with wild and dangerous critters for you or not yet, we're all curious? I'm no snake person either, always worry a little about seeing them down in that area of the country though.

 

Just carry a shovel with you... One swift chop and 1 snake becomes 1 head and 1 convulsing worm.

 

That depends on how close you get... But there's really not that much blood in a snake, unless they are huge. Some gets on the shovel, but shoving it into the ground once or twice cleans it right off.

Interesting fact: The mouth of a decapitated snake will open and close for several hours after it is severed from its body.

Its best to bury the head to prevent accidentally being bitten by it. This process of burying the head also cleans the shovel.

 

I learned and put into practice this method of dispatching snakes growing up cowboying... Snakes can cause big problems in a herd of cattle.

 

I’ve had two rattlesnake encounters in my life. The first coming home from a birthday party with the wife and kids. Wife stops short of the front porch while walking up the sidewalk, hearing a buzzing sound, noticing our three cats oddly hanging out there.

I think the sound is my neighbor’s bad sprinkler pump and push by her. My brain does that Terminator list-thing and finally lands on “rattlesnake.”

I freeze and my blood runs cold. I frantically scan the area with my eyes. There it is, a 6’ eastern diamondback coiled up in the mulch right by the front stoop.

I killed it with a shovel, put the head in a metal can and bend it shut, then dissect the snake for my kids.

Very soon, I look up and the sun is blotted out my a ring of curious faces. Every kid in the neighborhood comes over to watch it. The headless snake continues to writhe around and react to my knife.

The freakiest thing is the heart that continues to beat in my daughter’s hand for at least 15 minutes.

Second encounter was when we were speed-hiking the trails of Monte Sano State Park in Huntsville, AL. Had my wife not grabbed my arm I would have stepped on/over a 5’ timber rattler.

Never saw one in all the years I spent scouting the Blackwater State Forest when I used to deer hunt a lot.

That’s enough for this lifetime.