Humm .. Extra fee for hazard ?

[Nolan Kienitz]

Fellow inspector friend of mine in East Texas shared this image with me from his Friday inspection.

Was wondering (tongue in cheek) about an extra fee for inspecting Copperhead.

I told him I might have charged for getting my soiled clothes cleaned as I was "out of the door in a hurry". I HATE snakes. [:-yuck]

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[hausdok]

Hi Nolan,

No need to change his shorts. That's a Texas rat snake; one of literally dozens of varieties of rat snakes (called corn snakes in some areas) across the country. All of the venomous snakes in your area, with the exception of the Texas coral snake (red, yellow, black bands in that order) are pit vipers.

Look at the shape of that guy's head. It's not diamond shaped like a pit viper's. Look at the eyes - round pupils and not slit pupils like a viper's. Look at the texture of the scales, smooth and not rough like a vipers - built for speed so it can escape; a pit viper doesn't even try unless pushed. Look at the nose - no sensory pits below or in front of the eyes.

He could have reached over and picked that guy up. Most of the time, unless they are highly aggitated, they won't even try to bite. It might have taken a nip at him and given him two little tiny rows of bite holes but it wouldn't hurt much. His defense is a nasty musk that he'll secrete all over you if you grab him. Nasty stuff, makes you want to puke.

When I was in the army and we'd go on field problems, I'd go out in the mornings and find and pick up 3 or 4 of them and bring them back, strip them out and fry them up for breakfast. They taste sort of like an oily bacon and are a nice side with MRE's.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[charlieb]

Hi Nolan,

No need to change his shorts. That's a Texas rat snake; one of literally dozens of varieties of rat snakes (called corn snakes in some areas) across the country. All of the venomous snakes in your area, with the exception of the Texas coral snake (red, yellow, black bands in that order) are pit vipers.

Look at the shape of that guy's head. It's not diamond shaped like a pit viper's. Look at the eyes - round pupils and not slit pupils like a viper's. Look at the texture of the scales, smooth and not rough like a vipers - built for speed so it can escape; a pit viper doesn't even try unless pushed. Look at the nose - no sensory pits below or in front of the eyes.

He could have reached over and picked that guy up. Most of the time, unless they are highly aggitated, they won't even try to bite. It might have taken a nip at him and given him two little tiny rows of bite holes but it wouldn't hurt much. His defense is a nasty musk that he'll secrete all over you if you grab him. Nasty stuff, makes you want to puke.

When I was in the army and we'd go on field problems, I'd go out in the mornings and find and pick up 3 or 4 of them and bring them back, strip them out and fry them up for breakfast. They taste sort of like an oily bacon and are a nice side with MRE's.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

Mike,

You've made a bad assumption. There are those of of us who see anything that shape and crawl like @#$&. Now it it were only a rat or mouse...............

[hausdok]

You've made a bad assumption. There are those of of us who see anything that shape and crawl like @#$&. Now it it were only a rat or mouse...............

Hell Charlie,

Now you know darned well that I turn into a combination of a 4 year old girl whimpering and crying and Carl Lewis doing the 100 meter dash at the mere sight of a live rat.

I'd rather face a King cobra or take a bullet in the brain than have to deal with one of those beasts.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[charlieb]

Now now,

I will say my niece in Vienna had a pet rat. We all met at LAke Balaton in Hungary for a couple of weeks vacation and brought the thing. Her mom was all for the creature, really clean etc etc......

When it was time to give the house it's end of season clean up, and found several nest, she had to face how filthy the thing was.

[Larry Stamp]

Now now,

I will say my niece in Vienna had a pet rat. We all met at LAke Balaton in Hungary for a couple of weeks vacation and brought the thing. Her mom was all for the creature, really clean etc etc......

When it was time to give the house it's end of season clean up, and found several nest, she had to face how filthy the thing was.

[Larry Stamp]

Whoops! Figured I would start practicing on the forum. Hit the wrong button. Anyway, I don't care what kind of snake it is. If you want to see an overweight, middle aged white guy take off like a shot, put a snake by me. Had a buddy who came across the neighbor's lost 12 foor boa in the crawl. He tells the story in the most macho manner... yea... right. I would have loved to see how fast he came out of that crawl space.