Rat Snakes Rule

Being a psuedo-city girl before our ranching adventures began, I knew some about snakes but nothing like I do now after having met with about 50 or so of them personally in the last 5 years, including a super long one under our truck yesterday - and the reason for this blog. We let it live. I always appreciated a snake's role, but now am a HUGE FAN of one particular species: rat snakes. 

In the country, rat snakes become your best friend. If you have them, you avoid the infestations of mice and rats. They also occasionally eat other snakes, poisonous snakes. In short, you want these to live in or near your barns and houses, unless of course you have livestock such as chicks, which they also love to eat. 

When we lived at the other property near Houston I remember not having mice for a while. After waking up one morning to a rat snake in my kitchen, I realized what to thank! I politely threw a towel over it, grabbed the snake and tossed it in the yard near our house in the hopes it would continue being our personal mouse police.

The following year, we accidentally killed a rat snake in that same spot, mistaking it for a possible water moccasin, and guess what we got after that? Yep. Mice.

Think twice before you kill a snake, and learn to identify the rat snakes. It's pretty easy. They have wedge-shaped heads, round eyes, and can be black, red, or have patterns of browns. They are longer than most snakes - up to 72 inches, so they look scary but will often avoid confrontation by staying still. If confronted, however, they WILL rise up and will move very quickly, hence their bad reputation - but they are actually very docile and just scared of YOU. To learn more, see this site.