Update
 

It seems as though yesterday my neighbor who I share the fence with just saw "the biggest black snake she's ever seen in her life!". Great:( She was babysitting at the time, so there was nothing she could have done. I have yet to know what happened to the snake. They have so much junk in their backyard that I bet they are just homing snakes. Hopefully my Snake Away around the perimeter of my house will help. I'm thinking it's a Black Racer Snake. I really don't know though.

You most definately need a nice BIG King snake hanging around to take care of the rattlers!

Black racers are slender and have a white chin. They are also "grumpy". I gleaned this information from a snake site - it had beautiful pics, but I didn't want to give you the willynillies.

A remarkebly fast species with a bad temper. Although its not venomous the black racer will often bite vigorously when captured. I also read from another site that it is one of the few non venomous snakes that will attack unprovoked. .

:D Figured I'd brighten your day a bit :D

This works. Is it possible to put mothballs (not the cedar ones) on the other side of our fence ? or are there dogs and kids there to if you can , it keeps snakes at bay also in any crawl spaces that snakes can get into but not your furbabies

How to Rid your home and yard of Snakes | eHow.com

The only snakes in Ireland are the ones you'll find at the local pub hahahaha. I hope you contacted animal control and let them know, a small child or someone else's dog or cat could be in danger

My thoughts exactly

I can't put anything on the neighbor's side of the fence because it's not my property. I'm sure the neighbors are used to seeing them because they've lived in Louisiana their entire lives. Me? I'm just a misplaced New Yorker who is freaked out!

One of my roomates in college had a 6ft snake as a pet. Well, one day one of my brilliant roomates broke the snake glass tank and they thought an even more BRILLIANT fix was to put the 6ft snake in a tub container with a thin chalkboard as the cover to "keep it inside." Needless to say the snake escaped at night and was never found again for 5 months. I would like to add that when the cage broke and they put it in the plastic tub, I was in south Florida visiting my family. When I came home I heard a loud hiss...saw the broken glass cage AND FREAKED OUT. That is how I FOUND OUT the snake was loose! Needless to say, I grabbed my things and I basically lived with my boyfriend until the snake was found because I could simply not BARE the thought of walking around to even go use the bathroom in the middle of the night and come across the snake!

For those of you who are still reading my long drawn out post, the snake was found eventually by a maintenance worker who was remodeling the kitchen of the house. He was trying to grab the plugs behind the dishwasher....grabbed the snake instead! :mad: POOR MAN! Thankfully nothing happened to him...but what if it did?!

:aimeeyork:aimeeyork Oh my!!!!! That is sooo scary!!!! I hate snakes, lucky Alaska does not
have snakes. I hope that you will never have any more. That is so awful about the apartment.... How could that happen? Oh my you poor thing, I would of totally freaked out.... We have alot of wildlife that you see, but they are not scary like a snake.... BE CAREFUL!!!!!!!!!!:animal-pa:animal36

The snake infested carpet gave me shivers. I'm so sorry you had to endure that. I hate snakes when they're strangers in my yard. My daughter has a BOA in a tank and it's quite pretty but not crawling around. Ick.

Me too!

i just found the shedding of the snake 5 minutes ago and am now freaking out again :cry:

Attachment 342750

ewww....

so can you tell what type of snake it is now???

My neighbor saw it in her yard too and from what we conclude it seems like it's a Black Racer Snake, which isn't poisonous. I'm so overly cautious but not terrified. But I'm fairly certain I will lose it if I see it again. It was really big.

I think I've heard that once a snake sheds, it moves on... I think it takes a lot of them to shed and they tend to stay in one spot for a while when it's happening.

So you are saying I have a lot of them nearby or that you think they've moved on? :confused:

ew i just read that snakes shed their skin when they are growing in size. What a nightmare this is.

they are rat eaters... I don't know if that makes you feel anybetter:eek:

Yes I feel wonderful thank you!:mad: I wish one of my crazy neighbors would hunt after it. All week my boys have been sniffing crazily all over the backyard, but we haven't seen anything. I know they sense it's near.

I wish there was more than I could do than just tell you that I care.

I'm ok. I feel like I can keep the boys safe and protected. Cooper watches out the window 80% of the day so he'll see if there's anything unusual in the backyard. My biggest issue is that he asks to go potty several times a night in the middle of the night.

If it makes you feel any better, they are wayyy more scared of you and all the little canine feet! They shed and move on to hunt food. They eat once a week if they can find food.

It looks like a Black Racer skin. Similar to Black Rat but the tail is longer and the head looks shorter. Black Racers are beautiful, and show irridescent rainbow colors in the sunlight, and are extremely fast.

Snakes have extremely bad vision for up to a week or so before they shed. Actually have a clear scale over their eyes that turns milky white before shedding... they can see movement, but not much else, so they tend to stay put until they're done shedding. They may be more prone to strike during this time, but usually don't eat till shedding is done. And they do move on....

Harmless, non poisonous.

You could bag the skin and have a Herpetologist look at it for identification... or a local farmer could probably tell you too.

Thank you. I keep flashing back to seeing my Max punching it in the face. Literally, I feel like I was about 10 seconds away from it biting my boy. Max was hitting it and smacking it in the face. It was coiled with it's head up while Max taunted it.

Kathy, I live so out in the boonies that nobody really cares. What would happen if it bit me or one of the boys? I understand they are not poisonous but could major damage occur to either of us? I really don't have any experience with something like this.

Do you live near water ? I had a very large water moccasin in my back yard a few years back that came up from the canal behind our home. Sounds like what yours might be. At that time I lived in Louisiana and had a miniature pekingese. It was early morning and she didn't want to go out but I made her anyway....then I saw it! I started screaming and of course my dog ran from me and I panicked too. Finally I got a hold of Abby and we got inside. The snake slowly turned and went back under the privacy fence into the canal. After that if she hesitated to go out I searched the yard!

Non-poisonous snakes that bite to protect themselves usually bite and let go very quickly, it is less painful than any dog or cat bite I've ever had. You may have 50 tiny holes smaller that any needles the vet uses to give vaccines with in the outline of the snake's mouth, and the wounds may bleed for a few seconds, but just soap and water to clean it up and AB ointment will heal it in about 3-4 days.

Non poisonous constrictors usually do not constrict anything that is too big for them to eat. If a small idiot snake bites and constricts around your arm, begin unwrapping it from the tail and work up to it's head. They usually won't let go till you get close to the head, then you can fling it away. Snakes don't chew, and if they eat something way too big for their size, they won't be able to move too well for a few days (makes them very vulnerable) and they could choke and die from it.

Snakes also have scent glands that are similar to anal glands in a dog, and sometimes if they are frightened or when they are first handled, they will let loose these glands and the smell ...Ewwww! But then you know the snake most likely wants to leave.

I found the basis of my snake phobia was actually the fear of death. Once I realized that smaller non-poisonous snakes cannot kill me, I was okay with them. As I continued working with them, I learned to read their body language, just like we do with our pups.

Hope this helps... gotta batten down the hatches... tornado warning here!:eek:

This thread gives me the heebie jeebies. Everytime I get a notification in my e-mail, I shudder :(

Sorry.

Thank you Kathy.

After having a 6ft snake loose in my house for 5 months. Trust me...I understand your concern/disgust/worry.

Great info! I'm filing this in a safe place in my brain! I live between 2 ponds. My neighbor has seen water mocassin's twice, I've never seen one but I've had garden snakes on my screened porch. I can just see my 2 girls thinking they scored a cool new toy. Yikes.