Never a dull moment

flowerweaver

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As if having something with stingers colonizing in my shed weren't enough, I now have an even more frightening prospect.

Back in June a tornado felled our back yard Italian Stone pine--which had been the champion tree in Texas--across my greenhouse. It made a huge hole in the ground and when the tree company came to cut and remove it, the root ball fell back into the hole, leaving some gnarled roots and airspace beneath. Our dogs were quite intrigued so we had to fence them out of it.

Sullivan keeps digging his way under the fence around the stump and has made a sizable Wiener dog den beneath it, to which he now retreats if I don't put him in his crate at the first hint of sunset. I've attempted to block his tunnels with large pieces of firewood, but in his determination he musters the strength to remove it.

Yesterday late afternoon I heard intense growling behind the house and thought perhaps Gilbert and Sullivan were in a tiff. Then I heard a piercing shriek from one of them, and ran to see who was injured. I was not prepared for what I saw.

Wedged between the house and some trees, there were all three dogs surrounding the largest black snake I've seen yet. Sullivan was trying to pull it by it's middle. It's head was flattened like a cobra and face to face with Gilbert, who was backed against the wall with his hackles up. It was rattling it's rattle-less tail.

I knew it wasn't a rattlesnake, but I wasn't sure it was an endangered Blue Indigo, either, which we often encounter in our chicken coop. (It is the largest non-venomous snake in the US and eats rattlesnakes). It was more of a charcoal or dusty black rather than a shiny blue-black. I am now thinking it was a Black Hognose snake, or Spreading Adder. They are venomous, but rear fanged and tend to posture to scare away its predators. Although many snakes will rattle and flatten when surrounded (I completed the fourth side) I'd never seen a Blue Indigo--or any snake here--in this kind of fighting form. It was awesomely frightening to say the least.

Quickly I scooped them both up, one under each arm and carried them to their crates in the greenhouse with Cody in the lead. There I checked them over for puncture wounds but did not find any. The snake had imparted some very nasty musk-stink on them both, though, and it transferred to me!

Of course, the snake headed right for the den under the pine stump! Arrgh! Now I really don't know what to do. I'm hoping it slithered off in the night to find another home. We have plenty of wild space, so I don't know why it has chosen my backyard!
 

Ridgerunner

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You do have some fun down there don't you? I like having non-venomous snakes around but not in the henhouse. I recently caught a black rat snake in there and gave it to a friend that wanted one in the hopes it would eat some rattlesnakes around her house in the woods. She worries about her dogs getting bitten. I don't know if it will do her any good with her timber rattlers but it made her feel better and got it out of my henhouse alive.

It won't keep snakes out of there but you might try an apron on that fence to stop your dogs from digging under. Take a piece of fencing maybe 12" to 18" wide, lay that flat on the ground and attach it to the bottom of your fence. The idea is that they start to dig, hit the fence, and don't know to back up. You don't have to bury it, just weight it down flat with something, but if you cover it with a couple of inches of dirt it gets it out of the way of weed whackers and lawn mowers. For most people I'd say just take p the sod and replace it but I'm not sure you have good sod down there.

I credit the apron around my run keeping coyotes form digging in a few months back.
 

flowerweaver

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@Ridgerunner we have aprons around all our fields to keep the rabbits and armadillos out, so we'll probably have to go that way with this, too. We used to have sod before the historic drought in 2011, and any remnants of it was finished off by the heavy equipment removing the downed trees. Right now it's all filling in with straggler daisy--short enough to suffice as lawn but tall enough to hide snakes!
 

baymule

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A snake den!!! Lucky you!!!! :weee WHOO-HOO!!!! :celebrate

Not really, just that smart alec in me that shines at opportune moments like this.

yeah, you're gonna have to skirt the stump with wire to keep the dogs out. Weiner dogs are hunters. They were bred to go down badger holes in Germany, so it is no surprise that yours would feel right at home in his tunnel under the stump. Then the snake had to show up and spoil it all for him!
 

flowerweaver

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@baymule think I'm going to have to get Sullivan some flash cards to teach him the difference between a badger and snake! The toot was just out there making a new tunnel three feet from the fence. That apron is going to have to be pretty darn wide. He's now sulking in his crate. Gonna have to walk on a leash until we can get to it.
 

flowerweaver

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@Nyboy LOL just about everything out here bites and poisons, even the plants. You sorta get used to it. The protective mother in me will probably be my undoing someday.
 

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