Very fortunate!

Toad

Toad

Active member
Tonight just at dusk, I was "resting my eyes" in the recliner. My wife woke me up and said, "Your dog is going crazy and there is a big snake in the backyard!" So we got the dogs all wrangled into the house, shut the dog door, and went out back with the flashlight. Sure enough, it was a medium sized copperhead. I gave it a couple quick chops with the garden hoe and flung it out into the woods.

I went back into the house and checked each dog over, especially Junie the pup, and nobody had been bitten. Very lucky!:thumbsup: My neighbor's dogs get bitten by copperheads at least a couple times a year, occasionally requiring a trip to the emergency vet.

My wife said that Junie was within a foot or two of the coiled up snake barking like crazy when she woke me up. The other two dogs were keeping a safe distance, just avoiding the snake.

Here is the really scary part! Last night Junie did exactly the same thing just after dark, except that she appeared to be barking at something just on the other side of the fence. My wife and I walked around looking to see if there was a racoon or something trying to get the chickens. Now we know it was probably the same snake, and I imagine we walked fairly close to it in the dark!:eek: It kind of looked like she was barking at something on the ground, but it was difficult to tell for sure so we just shined the flashlights around and then put her inside the house. SO lucky we didn't step on it!

We kill a couple copperheads a year here, and knock on wood, nobody has been bitten. Actually with all the brown recluses, wasps, scorpions, and copperheads we have out here, we've been incredibly lucky!;)

PTL my 2-year-old daughter didn't find it while playing in the yard earlier tonight! She is very curious about nature and probably would have had no fear about trying to pick it up if she saw it. She is always trying to catch the collared lizards...
 
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WOW! I hate snakes!!!! :eek: I would head to the Casino if I had your luck!
Glad to hear all family members are ok. What type of area/ habitat do you live in to get that many snakes per year?

I am like Jim Stafford " I don't like no spider and snakes"
 
I think it's ben dry in your area. That makes snakes exploratory! If the chicken house is a shed with a foundation, it's perfect place for a copperhead. They are looking for mice, and the least likely snakes I have seen to bite. I had little kids in my neighborhood pick them up, finding them looking for earth worms to fish with! I wouldn't try it but it's been done successfully. Biggest will sure carry a wallop. I hate the venom, but I like all the things they do, vermin control, but you can cannot live with them. Must be a rocky ledge they live where they den around, and winter. At your place I if I heard a ruckus, snake would surely be on my mind!
 
Last summer my brother in law's shorthair got hit by a rattle snake. His head swelled up about twice its normal size, he looked pitiful for sure. Spent a few days at the vet and he is as good today as he ever was.

A month ago I got spider bit on my thumb. Not sure what it was, but I had red streaks up past my shoulder, thumb swelled up to the point I couldn't pick anything up or even open a door knob. An hour and half on an IV and 15 pills a day for 2 weeks kept it knocked back though. No tissue damage at all. Doctor thought it might have been because I addressed it immediately as well as being bitten on the back of the thumb there isn't much fatty tissue for the venum to attack.
 
cheesy,
I am glad you got it looked at right away, could have been alot worst, I remember my mother telling me of a friend of yours who got bit on the breast by a brown recluse spider. My mon said it was terrible to look at, her flesh just decomposing is how my mother described it. Such a small creature can do some much damage.
Glad to hear you are doing welll and I am sure your hand will be fine for bird season no matter what, RIGHT :) :) :)
I have been told some good medicinal liquid medicine helps alot.
 
Toad, there was a story on TV last night here in KC about a dog being bitten in the snout by a copperhead at the off leash park at Shawnee Mission Lake. He recovered but his face was swelled up twice its normal size. I took notice because I take the dog over there to swim a couple times a week during the summer. Looked pretty painfull for the dog. Glad yours was unscathed.
 
That's great luck. I have a friend who has been bitten by copperheads twice on her own rural Dougals County property while gardening. That's some real bad luck.
 
The farmer where I hunt the most in Kansas told me they killed 28 copperheads just last year. He said he would NEVER venture out on his property like I do when I am out pheasant hunting. He thinks I am crazy for two reasons: A. There are lots of copperheads in the area B. That I would walk miles to see a rooster pheasant and drive hundreds of miles just to get to his fields in the first place

I guess I would have to agree with my friend on both accounts.
 
Hope we get some moisture headed toward Kansas pretty soon. Hang in there, things are bound to get better!
 
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Here's the pic of my brother in laws shorthair after taking on a rattler.
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Here he is a few months later out west, no worse for the wear-
DSC_9682.jpg
 
Thanks for the replies and well wishes, guys. :thumbsup: Yes, a swelled up, sick dog, family member, or ME is what I sure hope to avoid. It's beautiful, rugged country here in the flinthills, but one must be careful...

Wow, Cheesy, I hope the thumb heals okay.:thumbsup:

@ O&N,

I think you are spot-on. Now that I think about it, it seems like we see a lot more of them during dry spells. I would guess the den must be somewhere close to my neighbor's place. Or it could be that he has a very small spring on his land, and that's the closest permanent water I am aware of. Except for the dogs' water in the backyard.:eek:

FWIW, I don't take any joy from killing copperheads. I wish they didn't have venom and then I would enjoy seeing them and appreciate the benefits of a reduced rodent population. Out away from my home I am live-and-let-live to anything I don't intend to eat. But part of my job is to protect the family and the animals in our care when I'm at home, which sometimes ends up being a bad deal for poisonous snakes, brown recluse spiders, and chicken-eating varmints.
 
Glad you, your family and dogs are OK. Just when do those snakes, spiders and scorpions hibernate for the winter, because that will be the time of year that I come out to go pheasant hunting. I hate those critters.
 
Labman500 said:
Glad you, your family and dogs are OK. Just when do those snakes, spiders and scorpions hibernate for the winter, because that will be the time of year that I come out to go pheasant hunting. I hate those critters.
Click to expand...

Yet another reason to love hunting in the snow. :thumbsup:

I've heard the scorpions are no worse than a bee sting so I don't worry too much about them. Their population must be kind of cyclical because some years we never have any and other years they seem to be everywhere. :eek: Also, i could be wrong, but it also seems like we see a lot less since we got the chickens a few years ago. They may be in the birds' menu.
 
Well, our luck is still holding out!

We were in the living room shortly after putting the kids to bed, and my wife suddenly blurts out, "SNAKE BARK"! Sure enough, I listened and Junie was out there barking all by herself with the occasional excited yowl. I went out with the flashlight (in flip-flops and shorts) and there it was, in the lilac bushes right in the middle of the backyard, another copperhead. I couldn't get it with the hoe due to all the branches, so I put all the dogs in the house and went for the shotgun. He was gone by the time I got back with the shotgun and headlamp. Hopefully he will move on and we won't see him again...

All dogs were fine, thankfully. My neighbors to the North's dog got bitten in the face last week.:eek:

It is truly strange the way our dogs react to them. Daisy will point a box turtle like nobody's business, but she is totally nonchalant about the copperheads. Not really interested, or afraid, just pretty much indifferent to them, walking around the yard, like "what's all the fuss about?" She won't go close to them, but you can't tell from her behavior that anything is wrong at all.

My wife's little dog barks ALL DAMN DAY long at NOTHING, but doesn't bark at the copperheads. She really avoids the area and seems very fearful, but doesn't bark at all. She just paces nervously far away from the snake or goes in the dog door and stays inside.

Then I NEVER hear a peep out of Junie all day and night, but she goes totally nuts when there is a snake in the yard. It's interesting... I bet before we got Junie we probably had copperheads in the backyard all the time, but the other dogs just avoided them and came in the house when the snakes were out.

Must be a bad year for copperheads. My neighbor to the East (with the spring) killed two more last week that his dogs had cornered.
 
I'm kind of glad the snake left on its own tonight, but I am a little nervous that it will keep coming back like the last one did.

Also I'm glad that Junie is barking to let us know there is a snake in the yard, but I hope she continues to keep a safe distance from it and doesn't decide to tangle with it. I hope she doesn't become more confident over time and decide to take a nip at one.
 
Toad, Glad you dodged the bullet again:eek:

If I were you I would do the following.

1) find a real estate agent
2) again go to the Casio and bet it all. With your luck you are unbeatable.
3) take the money and move to a snake free area or hire that jackass Billy the exterminator. (it would be fun to watch). :D

Take care and you have given me nightmares! YIKES

Kick
 
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