WATCH YOUR ASS!!!!

Has nothing to do with Tattoos, but as I was telling Taz earlier on email, great Colorado story.. I go down to my dad's place tonight for dinner and his next door neighbor yells at me across the fence, "Hey, do you know anything about snakes?" I say yeah I do, (I love snakes) and she calls me over to take a look at it. I come over there, and sitting right in the middle of her futon couch on the back porch is about a 16" Prarie Rattlesnake with 5 buttons just all stretched out, lookin' like "What? Fuck, I dunno, you weren't using it"... So we grab the snake and pitch him in the field behind the house, but that was kinda disturbing. I mean, they didn't even know what the fuck he was, and he was sitting right in the middle of their couch!!!! Talk about potential pain in the ass!!!

I'd a battered that fugger up and deep fired him!!...Rattle snake is GOOD EATS!!!

I've never had Rattlesnake, but Fried Alligator on a stick is DELICIOUS!!!

The funniest part was they were like "Do you know anything about snakes?" And I was like "Well, I sure as hell know enough not to touch that one!!!!!!!"

yeah, this time of the year I have to do a "walk through" before i let todder out to play in the yard. Four foot rattler the other day kickin it in playyard. My motto with rattlers is kill first if they are in my hood. I have real good aim with a spade behind thier ears or I call for dh to handle. Swift! When I see a snake I always assume it;s a rattler until proven otherwise.

Ya don't waste em do ya?...they are sooo tasty!!!

Man, I just dropped 350.00$ on my bulldog that just got bitten by some kinda viper. I'm not sure who got hurt worse him or my wallet.

Is the puppy gonna be ok SKitt?

mamacat, I've been collecting and keeping snakes my entire life............and I can almost guarantee that if you live anywhere in the L.A. Basin or surrounding hills, the snake you're dealing with is either the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake (Crotalus Viridis Helleri), or the Red Diamond Rattlesnake (Crotalus Ruber Ruber), either of which can inflict a serious injury, but each with very different temperaments. The problem with killing them is that usually in the spring and summer months they travel up to 5 miles from their winter den sites in search of mates and food, so a rattlesnake on your property is probably only passing through, and will probably be followed by another at some point. Educating youngsters about the necessary precautions to be taken when living in a venomous snake area will serve you a lot better than killing every snake you see. I'm not getting on my soap box here, but we humans continue to encroach on the natural habitats of various forms of wildlife, and then don't even have the decency to try to co-habitate with these animals. Every time a mountain lion strays into a new mountain housing development, it has to be shot. Rattlesnakes are one of the few predators that can hunt disease spreading rodents in their burrows, and control the populations of these vectors to infinitely larger degree than all bird of prey combined. Try to reconcile the increasing instances of Hanta virus in the Southwest, ironically in areas where the local chambers of commerce sponsor these yearly 'Rattlesnake Roundups" in which literally millions of these animals are taken from areas where they pose no threat to anyone, and slaughtered for their skins and meat (which, by the way TAz, is infested with intramuscular worms in wild caught specimens. That's what makes it so tasty). I have a friend at Stanford Hospital who is one of the top authorities in the country on treating snake envenomations, he treated me when I was bitten foolishly playing with a captive specimen, and I've attended a number of lectures he regularily gives on the topic. Statistically, in the U.S., there are an average of 5000 snake envenomations each year, of which an average of 8 die. Usually, those casualties are the result of stupidity, i.e., alcohol consumption leading the victim to believe that the injury is something to be slept off, or simply pre-existing compromised health. If you feel that killing these valuable members of the eco-system you've chosen to live in is an effective preventitive measure, then you better kill every bee that flys near your child as well, because bee's kill more humans each year than any other animal on the planet. Best Regards TCE

.........Oh, and Al, One of the slides used in the aforementioned lectures is a pie graph showing the percentage of bites to various areas of the body, and there is one sliver of a piece that is listed as 'non-specific'...................that's a category you don't want to fall into, like the captive rattlesnake that 'fell' into one hapless drunken party goer's lap!!!!!!!! TCE

Oh no, TCE, we didn't kill it, I mean, it's like you said, I understand mamacat's instincts, especially with kids around, and I mean, I've got my 2 little girls too, but it's just like bad Karma or something. We put him in a big bucket, (which was funny cause he was a mad little fucker) and took him out and threw him back in the field behind the house... as he went soaring through the air he was buzzing the whole time. Pretty fucking funny. Besides it's my own fault karmically somehow... Since I got my tattoo on my arm (a snake) I've never seen so many snakes. And I've almost NEVER run into rattlers in the wild until now, and that's like the 3rd one this summer!! I am of the snake clan now or some shit.....

Worms...AHHH DAMMITT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well it didn't kill me! Tim...you really are a snake guy!....I love em....no seriously but ya know what I love MORE?.... Spiders !...I have loved spiders all my life ...bitten twice by Brown recluses and 3 times by Black Widows...each time my own fault...can't blame the critters! Also got tagged by 3 tiny little copperheads when I was reaching behind my moms washer to disconnect it...I felt a little TING! TING TING! and when I pulled my hand back there were 3 tiny little black wormy things chewin on my finger....I wasn't terribly worried...hell they were about the size of a good earthworm...so I went upstairs and sat down at moms table, lit a smoke and by the time that I got a third done with my ciggie it was like a white fog was rolling inside my eyeballs....they rushed me to the trauma unit and the doc later told me that if I had waited 10 more minutes I would probably have croaked....I later found out that baby copperheads venom is about a hundred times more powerful than adult snakes!...My entire arm to the elbow turned totally black my fingernails fell off within a month and the skin sloughed off for over a year!...I still have 2 fingers with absolutely NO feeling in them and I am told it will never return... But I still love snakes...by the way...my mom had to call animal control to see if there were any more in her basement ...they found a total of 4 nests of copperheads...6 adults and over 25 babies!! Talk about freaking out!...We got off lucky!...T

Goddamnit Taz! That's a good story! Shit! I'm gonna have to start livin' a little harder. I need some stories like that... well, maybe not like that exactly, but, well, maybe not like that at all. And, I fucking hate spiders, but I don't kill em. I put them outside. Copperheads, where the hell do you have to live to run into those, Louisianna or somethin?

Oh no Al we have them here in Missouri!...Don't let ANYONE tell ya different...I have pics of my arm and hand I will dig out and show ya! When we called animal control and told em that we thought we had a family of copperheads in the baesment they just laughed...that is till they started dragiin em out of there!....T

TAz, That's cool, you're in the snakebite survivors club!!!!!!!!!! I mentioned once before somewhere on this site that the most venomous snakes found in the U.S. pale in comparison to those found on other continents, and that is absolutey the truth. The snakebite I suffered basically amounted to 4 days of supportive care at Stanford, which means if I had done nothing, the results probably would have been the same. I refused antivenin because of the blood components contained in it, so it became a situation of 'wait longer and see'. In the end, my arm swelled up like an innertube, and turned black with bruising (a result of the blood vessels leaking into the surrounding tissue) by the day I was released. Most doctors have never treated a snakebite, and are sketchy at best when it comes to grading a bite. The one thing I often hear that is not entirely true about snakebites is the one about baby snakes being more venomous. While it may be true that a newborn's (all North American vipers are livebearers) venom may be more potent drop for drop until they make their first kill, the total amount of venom they have at their disposal is miniscule compared to that of an adult. The fangs of a baby viper are tiny, and cannot inject venom very deep into the tissue, whereas a large cottonmouth or rattlesnake has a significant amount of venom on board, and fangs up to an inch long, sufficient to penetrate the subcutaneous tissue and deposit venom into a muscle compartment, which can then lead to a grave situation, often resulting in large nasty surgical scars or amputation. But again, education and respect for these, and all indiginous critters is really the best policy for all parties involved. As Al said, Karma.............. TCE

...............Oh, AND TAz, I loooooooooovvvvvvvvvvve Copperheads! One of the most gorgeous snakes in the country. I had 7 of them at one time. I'll send you some pics (pictigaster, no pun) later on. I also used to have what's referred to as a Rio Grande Gold tarantula. I used to handle that thing every day, it was absolutely docile! Unfortunatley, it died while molting one year. TCE

mamacat, You're still cute, even if you've beheaded my children............. TCE

Just got back in town from camping. Oh believe me, I'm a complete "co-exist" with nature gal. Just right now I gots a toddler (Mia Cat) too young to understand a good snake from a bad snake (bad as in poisonous to her). I love snakes and all wildlife. Hell I even give my indoor spiders a 24 hour warning to split (or I help them along) before I set off flea bombs. Just when a rattler snake is in Mia's play gym 5' from my back door I feel he/she is moving too close into mamacat's den. I don;tbother tring to relocate them becuase I am aware they can travel for miles. Here's a pic of my yard. You can see the tree line in back is 25,000 acres of Santa Monica Mountains. All I ask is they stay out of her Tyco playhouse! As far as bee's, you're right, bee stings to an allergic person can be leathal, but the ratio od bee exposure to snake exposure is not quite balanced. Just a few weeks ago I came across, I KID YOU NOT a fat assed Ratller (seemed 5+ feet) was lying (very much alive) across my riding trail. I was at least 15' back. My horse was stomping, snorting, I was giving a few hots and that SUCKER would not move? He just layed there sretched out (not in a strike position thatnkfully) giving me stink eye, I finally just turned around and as I looked back the bastard THEN started to slip back into the brush! What was THAT about? LOL

I'm cute! I'm cute! ThANKS TCE! You made my day! woo-hoo!

Oh honey you are more than cute!...Especially the pic in the cat suit!...MEOW!!!!!! call me Garfield!!... Hows the mini cat? And the hubba hubby?

mamacat, No doubt you're dealing with the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake, a snake certainly capable of inflicting a VERY serious bite! You will hear all kinds of hype about how venomous the Mojave rattlesnake is, but the Souther Pacific is right on par with it, with a lot of the same bite symptoms, notably a lot of neurological symptoms. A five foot specimen is exceptionally large, but not unheard of. The largest one I've ever seen personally was 4 feet, and extremely irritable. We retrieved this snake from the home of a bite victim (ha) who foolishly reached into the captive animals cage, drunk, and showing off to some house guests. By the time the paramedics arrived nearly a half hour later, he was not breathing. He was given nearly 90 units (at about $170.00 per) of the old Wyeth polyvalent antivenin, and didn't regain conciousness for almost 5 or 6 days. When he did awake, his arm had been surgically filleted from forefinger, through the palm of his hand all the way to his elbow(faciaotomy). This was done to relieve the enourmous amount of pressure that had built inside the muscle compartments of his forearm, which in turn was cutting off the arterial flow of blood. Again, the result of being bitten by a large snake with fangs long enough to penetrate deep into the muscle tissue. Living where you do, it would be helpful to know exactly what your plan would be in the unlikely event someone is bitten. Don't chance something like this to whatever doctor happens to be on duty at the local emergency room. As I mentioned earlier, most doctors have never, and will probably never treat a venomous snakebite. Loma Linda hospital is the absolute best place you can end up in proximity to where you live. Even if you need to be airlifted, their experience is unparalleled, and you will be given the exact care necessary in relation to the severity of the bite. TCE

scary shit when you have a 2 year old. All I can say is they (rattlers) need to keep clear of mamacat's yard. That's all I ask.