Do you run over snakes?

I subscribe to the "don't deliberately run over them but don't swerve to miss them" theory.
I'll leave them alone unless they become a threat but that has never happened.
On the subject of Red Bellied Blacks, The Myer store in town used to be a large general store selling everything from clothes to hay & seed. They had a number of Red Bellied Blacks living in the store. They would go up into the rafters during the day and come down at night. The best way of keeping pests under control ever. Snakes can smell mice from a kilometre away and come for a feed, having R/B/B's helps keep the mice down so not so many other snakes are attracted but they also eat the other snakes when they come. So R/B/B's are a good thing to have around. As long as the kids know to behave around them.

I try not to run over anything personally but have worked with blokes in the bush who had irrational hatreds of snakes.
One of them, a southern European would go out of his way to kill them, he was totally mad about most things and snakes bought the worst out in him.

There was a dog owned by the electrician on one camp ate a King Brown and although it didn't die, it used to walk around all day shaking it's head (at it's own stupidity maybe) and barking non-stop.
Drove us mad with it's constant noise.

Although I don't mind them if they came into an area with kids I think I'd move them or kill them only as a last resort.
Leave them alone.
Alan.

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Originally Posted by Stephen Price

...So R/B/B's are a good thing to have around. As long as the kids know to behave around them.

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My Dad is currently in the process of educating his great grand daughter (my brothers grand daughter) about the R/B/Bs as her family are about to move onto the property so it is an important learning time for Ellie.

It is also important to protect our snakes. (Although we don't include them in the stock numbers!) :D:D

Diana

They say if you skittle a snake they have a habit of hanging onto the tailshaft and causing problems later, we get them all over the dirt roads on our ajistment centre during the hot summer days, mainly browns but some copper heads about and black snakes, I have seen one tiger near the dam,

We get them around the feed sheds, we have a resident black that lives in the damp ground near where the wash bay drains are, they have killed a few horses over the years but generally they are left alone, they really dont hurt anything they are just out doing what they do.

A mate of mine had a Diamond python, a big thing, his wife used to wear it around her neck while vaccuming and what not and I heard the old Mormons and Jehovas out spreading the good word used to bolt like startled gazelles when confronted by a girl wearing a snake.

Brings back memories of Crocodile Dundee , when asked if he eats snake, yeah but they always give me gas!

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Originally Posted by graceysdad

... they have killed a few horses over the years ...

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We usually find that it was the tigers that have taken the stock (horses and cattle) - with the cattle it is only a guess what got it but when you find a dead animal that was well the day before and there are no injuries, you assume it was a snake most likely a tiger.

Diana

Thanks, Grizzly_Adams for this thread, very interesting to read, especially for somebody from Germany! Snakes, Sharks & Spiders...isn't that what I came here for?

I just saw my first life snake EVER a couple of months ago in our back yard in Brisbane. It was only a White Crowned Snake, according to google quite harmless...but scared the sh** out of me...:eek:

And...yes...it was me standing on top of that table...:blush:

Cheers,

Thomas

When living in Central Africa we always checked for snakes around the engine when lifting the bonnet as they used to crawl into the engine bay for warmth. Occasionally a problem with the fanbelt would be because a boomslang or puff adder or whatever had got caught up in it when the engine was started.

When I was young I was sitting cross legged on the ground next to the farm ute working on a stubborn fitting when I felt a burning stabbing pain in my scrotum.
I found myself flying through the air toward the safety of the ute, but such was my fear and power of my adrenal reaction I cleared the ute and landed in the dust metres on the other side. I turned and sprang for the ute again, this time successful. I proceeded with a native American Shawnee dance in the back of the ute, clutching the affected area and mixing it up with some yodelling.
I was hopeful of no effects but if there were to be I was praying for a swelling deformity.
It turned out to be a bull ant sting.
I wisely avoided vanishing creams and ointments that promised to remove lumps.
I am now far more afraid of bull ants than snakes.
I also hate them sincerely and they remain a sworn enemy.
Tango

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Originally Posted by graceysdad

particularly with sharks, never swam in sea water in 40 years, Jaws did irrepairable damage as a youngster!

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Ahh, there's nothing quite like swimming with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef - well, reef sharks, at least. Not sure I'd like to swim with what I saw off Ceduna when I lived there!

The only time I saw a bronze whaler off Norfolk Island I was more than a bit shaky! I rarely saw sharks when diving Norfolk when I lived there.

Back to snakes, no, I wouldn't run over them. I haven't tried killing a snake since 1970 - that one was in the building with me in Ceduna.

When I worked in Carnarvon,I remember hearing something and looking down to see a dugite slithering along the floor under me. I had my feet up on the desk (it was about 2am). That woke me up!

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Originally Posted by Slunnie

Yup, and the death adders won't just get out of your way when they hear you coming. They seem to sit and wait for you.

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They were a bit of problem when we used ride dirt bikes around Ceduna. Pretty scary little beggars.