Breeding Black Racers
 

My roommate was looking for an escapee quail when he spotted something odd tangled in bird netting we had put around our strawberries. It was 3 snakes, all wrapped up in the netting. He originally thought they were black rat snakes, and he came to get me so I could help him free them.

One of the snakes, unfortunately, had passed due to getting the netting tangled around his throat right behind his head. When the other two immediately attempted to bite us, I looked closer. Brown noses, big eyes. Black racers, for sure. One much larger than the other two.

We grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and carefully carefully cut them out one at a time. It took about an hour. Thank God for gardening gloves because they were justifiably angry and the female in particular wanted to murder us. I wish I had a picture, but they were stressed enough without us waving things in their faces.

I feel awful that one of the males passed, but we were able to save the breeding female. I don't know why they would go for the bird netting as a good breeding habitat. Please, please, check your yards and get rid of anything which could tangle snakes.

Yup. Any bird netting on the ground will catch a snake, eventually. I use the stuff to keep birds out of the green house when the plastic is up, but keep it off the ground. It caught a large king last summer that I had to cut free.

That incident is what got me interested in keeping snakes.

I've been much more careful about the netting since.