Wannabe Thief

[Aozora]

We have coturnix quail chicks, and they had just gotten large enough to be moved to their outdoor hutch. We put them into the hutch at 8am, and when we checked on them again at 3pm, we noticed something a little... odd... sitting on one of the waste trays.

It was a black rat snake, all but drooling over the feathery meals right above its head. It can't get into the cages, but oh boy did it want to. I'm pretty impressed--less than 8 hours for the rat snake to find the quail and try to get them. I'd always heard every snake loves quail, but this just proves it.

Since it's clearly hungry, it's sitting in a spare bin while a mouse thaws. We'll let it stay with us til it has digested a bit and then let it go. It's been very well behaved aside from musking me when I pulled it out of the quail hutch.

Behold a very unrepentant face.

 

[vetusvates]

Excellent.

Imho, BRS musk is the most pleasant woodsy earthy smell of just about any snake.

 

[hypnoctopus]

I'm glad he didn't get any of your babies.

 

[Aozora]

Unreal...

Went to check on quail chicks this morning. They've been outside for 48 hours now. Found this behemoth, also sitting on the waste tray and drooling at the meals above his head. Based on the trails he left in the litter and the amount of chick poop he had on him, he was probably there all night. Good news is, we're not missing anyone! He's definitely big enough to have eaten one of them.

But yes, quail truly are snake magnets. I can see why black rats are also called "chicken snakes".

BTW, my roommate (holding him in the 1st picture) is 6'3" to give an indication of this guy's size. And again, such a sweet-natured snake. He put up with all of our manhandling for the pictures, and he will get a rat for a reward.

 

[AliCat37]

Wow! That second one is awesome!!

 

[Rich Z]

Black rat snakes are very highly underrated as pet quality snakes. I've caught a lot of them when I lived in Maryland and they have nearly all been very mild mannered and docile even being pulled right out of a tree.

 

[chris68]

Love black rats, and they do make good "pet" snakes. I've had a few over the years and all of them were very aware of what goes on around them

 

[MysticExotics]

Awesome! I love the BRS! I wish we had them here!

 

[Nanci]

What a beauty! You're so lucky!!! (Don't forget, if you can't resist temptation, you need to STRICTLY isolate any wild-caught snake, and it sure doesn't hurt to get it and a poop to the vet for a check.)

 

[Aozora]

I dearly love BRS, and I really am tempted by the big guy. However, I don't feel right taking an adult snake out of the wild. If we find a baby, I'll have zero qualms about keeping him--if wild adults are this sweet, imagine what a hand-raised one would be like.

On the other hand, my roommate and I have agreed that if the same snake shows up 3x he clearly wants to be a pet and we will keep him. We've recorded identifying marks on these two, so we'll see what happens.

 

[Nanci]

You could probably put a tiny dot of nail polish on his head, or something, too.

I found a gigantic grey rat just lounging in the road one day. He was puppy dog tame- like he'd been raised and loved for his entire life. One of the hardest WC snakes I just put back...

 

[Rich Z]

I dearly love BRS, and I really am tempted by the big guy. However, I don't feel right taking an adult snake out of the wild. If we find a baby, I'll have zero qualms about keeping him--if wild adults are this sweet, imagine what a hand-raised one would be like.

On the other hand, my roommate and I have agreed that if the same snake shows up 3x he clearly wants to be a pet and we will keep him. We've recorded identifying marks on these two, so we'll see what happens.

Actually, my little brother (Ross) raised up a black rat snake from a baby many years ago. They were inseparable. At first the snake was a bit nippy and Ross would reflexively jerk his hand, flinging the poor snake across the room. The snake eventually got the idea that biting Ross's hand wasn't a real good thing to be doing. So he mellowed out quickly. When the snake reached adulthood, Ross could put that snake around his neck and go anywhere and do anything and the snake would just hang there. If someone asked him if snakes had teeth, Ross could take the snake and open it's mouth to show people and the snake absolutely did not care. Heck, many people didn't believe the snake was even real the way he would just hang around my brother's neck unmoving. MANY times Ross left the lid off of the snake's cage but the snake NEVER went more than 2 ft. from the cage when he got out to take a look around. I don't recall what finally happened to "Blackie", but I'm guessing he just died from old age happy as a clam.

As for keeping an adult from the wild, heck, I've done it a number of times. In most cases, adults sometimes appear to be relieved at the now easy life they have. A long while back I caught a huge yellow rat snake near Englewood, FL that had all kinds of scars on his body. That snake never ever acted like he resented being caged or handled. When I fed him, he would take the rodents from my hand gently like he had been fed that way all his life. It seemed that from the scars he had had a pretty tough life, so he wasn't complaining at all about the change. Being free in the wild really isn't the nirvana some would think it is for wild animals.

 

[Rich Z]

You could probably put a tiny dot of nail polish on his head, or something, too.

I found a gigantic grey rat just lounging in the road one day. He was puppy dog tame- like he'd been raised and loved for his entire life. One of the hardest WC snakes I just put back...

Heck, I don't know how many gray rat snakes I have caught around here hanging around the bird feeders. Except for them getting excited thinking my hand might be a bird coming close, they never kick up a fuss when I catch them and relocate them. I've learned that just walking them to the edge of our property does no good. They will always find their way back. So I have to take them for a ride out to the national forest nearby so they don't to the "Lassie" thing.

 

[Nanci]

The Wild is maybe not Nirvana, definitely not; I think it's the cost of removing a reproducing adult that people worry about, if the population is in anyway in decline. Which black rats probably are not, much.

That's why I decided to keep a feral pigeon fledgling I found; in the wild, the average pigeon life expectancy is two years. In captivity, 25 years is common. Would the pigeon rather live wild and free for two years, or as a pampered but captive pet for 25? I don't know.

 

[Rich Z]

Heck, ask many people if they were given free room and board for the rest of their lives, with food when they are hungry and a mate when they want one, completely protected from outside harm, but are restricted in their movements outside of captivity, and see what they say. :grin01:

 

[Aozora]

The Wild is maybe not Nirvana, definitely not; I think it's the cost of removing a reproducing adult that people worry about, if the population is in anyway in decline. Which black rats probably are not, much.

This is why we don't really want to remove an adult from the wild, especially one as big as this big guy. I want him to reproduce and bring a lot more big ol' black rat snakes to the area. I see them DOR all the time, including one that was hit no more than 10' from my property (i.e. safety). It made me sick.

 

[spyderk]

Wow! How cool to be able to observe that behavior. They are both beautiful snakes.

 

[Rich Z]

Well, here's another black rat snake story I have.

Many moons ago my parents moved (I was still living at home at the time) to Fallston in Harford County, MD and the house butted up against a stream with a rocky hill on the other side. The entire area was heavily wooded. I always spent time in the woods, so I quickly did some exploring in the new environment I now lived in. Found an old abandoned building (perhaps a hunters cabin?) up on that hill and there was a tree next to it that had a good population of really huge black rat snakes living in it. If I remember correctly, I believe I counted six of them at one time. I would often go over there and put my hand in the lower branches of the tree and flutter it like a bird in distress. That brought the snakes down to investigate and they never seemed to get tired of that game we played. I caught a few of them just to handle them and then just released them back into the tree branches. Seems to me this went on all Spring and Summer into the early Fall.

Well, one day I went on over to the cabin and was devastated to find ALL of those black rat snakes laying dead on the ground underneath the tree. Looked like someone had shot them with a .22. I am surprised I didn't literally burst into flames I was so angry. Heck, it still brings tears to my eyes thinking about it. I seriously think that had the person or persons who had done that still been there at the scene of the crime, there would have also been at least one dead human body laying on that hill as well that day. Maybe mine for charging at someone holding a loaded gun, but still, I doubt I could have controlled myself. Damn, my blood still boils just thinking about it, even though it's been so long ago. Anyway, I didn't go back to that cabin for a very long time afterwards.

So, bear this in mind. Any neighbors of yours finding a snake like that are likely not going to be as thrilled as you are about it. There are still a bunch of genetically lobotomized people around who feel that the only good snake is a dead snake. And they will make every effort they can to make every snake they find a "good" snake.

 

[vetusvates]

Wow. The first part of the story was great, Rich.

And the second part was horrible. Some people...

 

[Aozora]

Thief #3!

I didn't even see this one until I had been out there for about 15 minutes. I remember seeing that the screens were sagging and wondering why. Well, turns out screens will sag under the weight of an adult black rat snake.

This snake amazed me. She saw me and rather than try to hide, she came right to me. I bent over to get a good look at her, and she proceeded to extend her head and about 1' of her body out away from the quail cage to get a good look at *me* too. She was about six inches from my face, very interested, and I think if my roommate hadn't come up she would have crawled onto my shoulders. What a sweet snake.

When we picked her up, I noticed it seems like she's a bit thicker around the middle than she should be. I think she may be gravid, but I'm not sure. Can anyone tell from the pictures?

Also, she took her mouse for us more calmly than any of my corn snakes and chowed down even with 2 human "monsters" staring right at her.