Larry, I don't know the name of it. But I have smaller ones, that look just like it, living right in the soil. They are definitely harmless.

George

I grew up calling those things bull snakes... but that definitely doesn't mean that's what they are! Ha!

Thanks for the reply, I have not harmed them in the past, and did not this time either. I am trying to teach my GD a few things in the garden and did not want the tell her it was harmless if it was not.

I hate to identify a snake from a picture, but have a look at this picture at the top of the page and see if this is it. I was just looking at it this morning because I saw one last week.

Black Ratsnake (Pantherophis obsoletus)

Here is a link that might be useful: Ratsnake

A friend on mine posted one on FB that looked awfully similar. They thought it was a black rat snake, but the oksnakes.org apparently said it was a "blotched water snake." Never heard of that one!

Hi Larry, i asked my best friend who is working on his doctrate regarding herps/teaches at U. of Ms. He says that is a Rough earth snake (Virginia striatula). He also said thats a good find! (Apparently they are not super common). Heres a link you may find helpful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Virginia striatula

Larry, The last thing I needed after the week I've had was a snake photo to look at. It is better that this snake is at your place than at ours because I'm fed up with snakes this week.

Those rough earthsnakes appear in my garden once or twice a year, and I just try to ignore them since I know they cannot harm me or the chickens. More commonly, we have rough greensnakes that like to sit on top of the shadecloth over tomato or pepper plants and prey on insects.They also climb tomato cages and all kinds of plants, shrubs and trees. I don't mind the green ones at all. Any venomous snake, though, makes a mistake when it shows itself to us, as we just don't tolerate them around the house, outbuildings, yard and gardens.

Tim tolerates non-venomous snakes better than I do. He used to remove the ratsnakes and chicken snakes and set them free far from the chicken coop when he found them in there. After I found a ratsnake constricting a half-grown keet, with three other similar-sized lumps in its body inside the guinea coop (and a total of four missing keets) , that was it for me. All constrictor type snakes found in or near the chicken coops now have a fatal encounter with a flying piece of lead.

I don't want to imply we have zero tolerance for all snakes on our property because that is not true. They can freely roam roughly 11-12 of our 14.4 acres, but when they are in the acre or two around the house, outbuildings, yard, gardens and driveway, they are in trouble. I'd rather chase off the non-venomous ones that are not constrictors because they won't hurt anyone, but the venomous ones and the constrictors aren't tolerated.

I knew what copperheads, rattlesnakes and cottonmouths looked like before we moved here, but I still spent a long time learning about all the non-venomous snakes as well as the less-common venomous ones like pygmy rattlers. I always assumed a snake was venomous and gave it wide berth until I could get a proper ID on it, feeling like it was better to be safe than sorry.

Alexis, I mentioned once that we had timber rattlers here and someone told me they were very rare and we likely would not see them often. I guess "rare" is in the eye of the beholder because I see timber rattlers all the time. I don't mean daily but pretty much weekly during snake season, and have seen more than 1 a day sometimes, being able to know it was not the same one twice because of significant differences in their sizes. They seem especially drawn to my garden, and usually I see them because they are trying to go into the garden at the same time I am in the evening hours, as they stick out like a sore thumb on the gravel driveway as they cross it to enter through the south fence. I don't even want to know how many come in from the north size where our woodland sits about 5' from the fence

Dawn

So many things about this thread that I find disturbing.

1. Larry, when you say "i toss them aside" do you mean you literally touch them and throw them? I mean, I'd be okay with leaving it alone, but no way am I going to TOUCH it.
2. I could have gone my whole life without the image of snakes climbing on tomato cages. I'm pretty sure I'll be having nightmares about that tonight. I'm afraid that the first time I run across a snake napping on a tomato cage I'll be done gardening forever.
3. CONSTRICTOR snakes? There are CONSTRICTOR snakes in Oklahoma? Good grief.
Krista

Krista, I seldom touch a snake, most often take a small stick and flip them out of my way. The closest I have come to being injured because of a snake was when tried to sit on one. I was tying up my tomatoes one year and because I don't bend or see well I get down on my knees and sit back on my heels. One of those snakes darted out from between my legs and I turned a Big Boy tomato plant into a Little Boy tomato plant in less than a second, I headed south taking most of that plant with me.

Larry

*giggles*

I behaved the same when I found a scorpion last week. Cured me of not wearing pants.

Oh goodness... I have been laughing so hard at this thread!!!

Krista, Since I hate snakes (the lovely green treesnakes are an exception), this whole discussion bothers me too. My precious dog, Honey, was bitten by a venomous snake earlier this week and I thought we were going to lose her, but now it looks like she has survived and I am so grateful. We've also had two cats bitten by venomous snakes this year, and with each of them it was almost 2 weeks before I started feeling like they were going to survive after all. They both were very sick. We've never had three animals bitten by venomous snakes in the same year before and it is only early June. I've never seen so many snakes up and active and right in our yard, garden and driveway like I've seen them this year. It is terrifying to have the venomous snakes all over the place in such numbers.

I wish I had a nickle for every time I have found myself staring into the face of a snake that is on top of a tomato cage, inside the interior of the caged tomato plant in the shade, or on top of the shade cloth I put over the peppers in late July and in August. It scares the crap out of me and sends me fleeing from the garden. Still, as Tim always says, it isn't the snake you see that is going to hurt you---it is the one you don't see. I think they sit there waiting for prey---possibly for birds since my garden is always full of songbirds eating grasshoppers and other pests. Remember that I am in a very wild, untamed rural area near the Red River where we have plentiful wildlife all over the place. The average person in OK is not likely to see snakes the way we do unless they are in a pretty rural area.

My introduction to constrictor snakes was when I walked into our large chicken coop and found a big, black, rat snake curled up in a nest that previously held about a dozen little guinea keets that were about the size of banty hens. Most of the keets had fled outside with their mamas, but he was wrapped around one of them squeezing it to death and had three suspiciously large lumps in his body which I determined (by counting the remaining guinea keets) were baby guineas. Until then, we'd only had rat snakes take eggs, not living poultry. Prior to that, Tim did a catch-and-release thing with the rat snakes and chicken snakes. Since then, we shoot every single one of them that gets anywhere near our two chicken coops.

I understand the need for snakes and the important role they play in our ecosystem. We'd be overrun with rodents outdoors without the snakes (and owls) here eating them, but I'm not ever gonna put up with the snakes getting into our coops and killing our young poultry.

I hate snakes. At some point every year my garden gets too snakey and I abandon it totally, only venturing in there very carefully to harvest. Usually that is around late July. It is so very disturbing to me that the snakes right now are worse than they are in July. I'm not ready to give up working in the garden this early in the season, but I may have to stop doing all gardening work except harvesting merely because the risk of being bitten by a timber rattler is so high right now. I bet I could stand in the driveway near the gate to my front garden and kill a timber rattler every night because for the last two years that is the primary place I have encountered them. The only other place I ever see them is when I go out to close up the chicken coops at night and almost step on them there. I try to avoid the timber rattlers as much as possible. All my old rancher friends and neighbors warned me repeatedly "that one will kill you" from the day we first bought this property, and I respect their advice and heed their warnings. Whenever they would shoot a big one, they'd stop by with it in the bed of their pickup trucks to show it to me and to say something like "see this one---if it bit you, you could die". I thank them for teaching me how to recognize the timber rattler at different ages and stages. If I could wave a magic wand and permanently change one thing about our place, I'd choose ridding it of snakes even above choosing having good rainfall permanently.

Larry, I'd rather die than touch a snake. I've never intentionally touched one, but have picked up a handful of hay mulch now and then and found a snake in my (thankfully) leather-gloved hand. Want to see a snake fly? Watch me fling one when I discover I'm holding it along with some mulch!

Bon, The first time a scorpion stung me, it hurt so much I was positive it was a snakebite. Thought I was going to die because it hurt like the dickens. (There weren't any fang marks and there was a scorpion, so ultimately I knew it wasn't a snakebite but nothing has ever hurt me the way that scorpion bites do.)

All scorpion bites hurt, but some worse than others. About 3 or 4 years ago I had one on my finger that made the finger swell up huge and ugly and stay that way for over a week. It was incredibly painful. I know better than to pick up anything off the ground without lifting it up with a stick first because there's a good chance a scorpion will be hiding underneath it---they love the mulch in the garden. When I forget and pick up something without checking underneath it with a stick, I'm likely to get bitten by something.....so I don't forget very often.

Alexis, Glad we could entertain you. : )

It's all fun and games until the first time you find a rattlesnake 2" from your hand. You will invent a new gymnastics movement on the spot. Trust me, you will, and it will get you away from the snake without being bitten and you'll be so grateful.

I've seen with several different local residents just how painful and debilitating a venomous snakebite can be and how long, arduous and painful the recovery is. I never had any idea what snakebites did to people until we moved here.

On the day I drove up here from Fort Worth in order to be on the premises when the electric co-op and water co-op guys were installing our water line and our electric lines so the builder could start construction of our homw, two people were bitten right here in our neighborhood. The workers were listening to their radios/scanners and told me about both bites--one of those people was bitten on the leg and the other on the hand (on different properties). One snake wouldn't let go, so the medics or cops cut off the body and the person was transported to the hospital with the snake head still attached to their limb. By the time I left here that day to go back home to Ft Worth, I was sufficiently terrified of venomous snakes.

Dawn

Larry,
I had this vision of you in a superman cape tossing snakes over both shoulders (similar to the image of Dawn that I sometimes have of her in the garden with a cowboy hat and pistol in each hand sharpshooting snakes left and right). I feel a little better knowing that I'm not the only one who freaks out with snakes.
Dawn,
In all seriousness, I am so sorry about the furbabies. I hate that we can do so much to care for them, but then they can get hurt so badly by something out of our control completely. I am glad they are doing okay, and I hope no one else at your house gets bit. Ever.

The rattlesnake museum in Albuquerque would bring a tshirt that said "I survived a rattlesnake bite" to all of the kids who were hospitalized with rattlesnake bites. When we discharged them, they always wore the tshirts home with a big smile on their faces. Maybe we should make some cute dog and cat snake survival shirts for your animals.

Are your timber rattlers black? By basic, oversimplified rule is that black snakes are to be avoided at all cost but can live, and any brown snakes have to die. But I just did a google search of timber rattlers and saw some that look all black.

That's pretty crazy about your tomato cage climbing snakes. I don't have to worry about that, because the snakes here in Cleveland county can't climb. Not at all. Yup. That's my story. No need for anyone to try to convince me otherwise.

Krista

I wrote about our snake encounters last week, but guess I failed to post. We were at our son's house in Osage County and his little house dog got a snake bite on her nose. They were planting soy beans on a neighboring property and she had gone out into that open field where the tractors were working. My son called her back and she moved closer to the edge, but by the time she returned to the house, she was seriously swelling and my DIL could see the fang marks. After an after hours vet visit, she survived but was slow and swollen for several days.

My son and I were checking some recently planted trees when the call came that she had a bite, so we tried to work our way through the pasture to get back to the house so they could take her to the vet. There was a lot of vetch so we couldn't see the ground, then we came to a little clearing and I spotted a snake almost where he had walked. A big dog was with us and she and I spotted it about the same time.

We came back to Grove after a few days and he called to say that he had just killed a cottonmouth at the pond near his house, so I guess they are bad everywhere this year.

Larry I was laughing so hard I almost choked on my lunch.
I am glad yall reminded me about scorpions and such. I usually wear gloves but didn't today. I definitely will next time I am moving mulch and cleaning the yard.
I do have quite a few lizards and toads which I am really respectful to not disturb them as long as they don't scare me first.

Awww. the poor little guy! I'm glad he's doing okay, now. I guess they really are bad this year. I've seen two only these were garter snakes. But they were bigger than those in the past.

I expect as I change things they will continue to get badder. My neighbor has an unkempt thicket nearby that runs along my Northern fence line. I don't mind. It's what keeps the wildlife thriving around my city plot. Eventually, I want my lot self-sustaining. And I suspect everything is and will act as if my lot is a refuge.

When I read these posts, I try to mentally prepare.

Last year I had a snake in the tomatoes and I'm in town. I convinced myself it was a black ratsnake rather than something venomous. It was stuck in the bird netting. Earlier this spring I walked into the bathroom to find a "garter" snake IN THE SINK. I guess he came up the drain. I have a phobia about snakes.

Okay, Amy. That's just CREEPY. OMG You poor thing. The sink???

Krista, I already had had a lot of encounters with snakes in trees before I saw one up on a tomato cage and also up in a tall tomato plant, so I was sort of prepared for it---though there is no way to describe what was going through my mind when I looked at a tomato plant and saw snakes eyes staring right back at me.

There is a Murphy's Law specifically for snakes and guns and it goes like this: If you carry a gun with you, you will not encounter a venomous snake, but if you leave your gun in the house, you certainly will see a snake and wish you had your gun. I've learned to call someone to come shoot it and I know my job is to not take my eyes off that snake and let it get away. (It is embarrassing if a friend comes over to shoot the huge, venomous snake you just saw and you've let the snake get away because you turned your head for only a second.)

About 98% of the timber rattlers I've seen are not the black phase ones--they are the standard ones with their background color varying from tan to almost a pale yellow fading to white, and then their marking are black. Around here, folks call them "velvettails" because their rattles have a velvety black outer layer. Usually the ones I see are 3-4' long, but I've seen two that were around 5' long and one that was about 6' long. By the time they have grown to be 5-6', they are very big around and are a horrible sight. It was a black phase one that bit Duke on the bridge of his nose about 6 years ago, and to this day anything tubular and black (a water hose, for example) scares him. He also remembers the exact spot where he was bitten and for several years afterwards would walk around that area, not through it, when we were out walking and got close to that location.

Carol, I'm glad that your son's dog made it. I don't know why the snakes are so bad this year, but they surely are all over the place.

Kim, I love lizards and toads and we have both in the gardens, but snakes will eat them, so keep that in mind. If you have something around that snakes will eat, sooner or later the snakes will show up looking for it.

Amy, That is horrible and there would have been a time when I would have thought that couldn't happen. I know better now. One of the guys who works with my husband was taking a shower one day and one came up through the drain thing in the floor of the shower. He was quick and grabbed his cell phone and took a photo of it. It was so creepy.

Bon, Eventually you'll encounter a snake you will wish you hadn't seen. I am stunned at how many we are seeing this year. We see snakes all the time....in the woods, in the pastures, in the roads, etc. and have a fair number of them in the yard and garden. This year, though, we are having tons of them in the yard and garden and even have had one in the garage. This is our 16th year here and the first time we've ever seen one in the garage.

Long ago one of my neighbors mentioned to me that once he had one come slithering out of his vehicle's A/C vent while he was driving up the road. To this day, I cannot look at an air conditioning vent in the car without thinking of a snake slithering out of it. I kinda wish he'd never told me that story.

We used bird netting with very small squares to try to keep the snakes out of Maddie's little Peter Rabbit Garden, and it worked but not the way we intended. We thought it would keep them from entering the garden. It sort of did, but it wasn't that they reached that mesh and turned away. Oh no, that would be too simple---I think they must not have been able to see the mesh or something and they'd try to squeeze through it and would get stuck and there we would be with either a live or dead snake stuck in the bird netting. It was not a pretty sight.

Dawn

I warned Bill. I told him what I've been reading. Last night when he was prepping the cellar he found ..... a snake !

Wet cellar...small....brown... I don't wanna know what kind it was.

not a bull snake
Just a old black snake they love chickens and eggs
Ive had them 12 feet long full of eggs slivering around.
Tree
Harmless unless u have chickens

not a bull snake
Just a old black snake they love chickens and eggs
Ive had them 12 feet long full of eggs slivering around.
Tree
Harmless unless u have chickens

Bon, There's several kinds of little brown snakes in OK that are perfectly harmless. You can see photos of them on the website linked below. With each type of snake, you can click on the snake to bring up info about it, including a map showing the OK counties where it is known to exist. That doesn't mean you won't have that sort of snake if it doesn't show your county---it just means that at the time those folks last updated this website, a specific kind of snake was not known to exist in that specific county.

Sometimes you don't really have to know what kind of snake it is, as long as you have established what sort of snake (as in venomous versus non-venomous) it isn't. With snakes, it is more important to learn how to recognize the characteristics that tell you it is a venomous snake than to know an actual name for what sort of snake it is.

In our earlier years here, I probably encountered 10 non-venomous snakes for every 1 venomous one. The last 3 or 4 years, those numbers have reversed and I am not sure why. I also noticed we haven't seen a possum here in several weeks, which is really bad news for us, because they prey on venomous snakes.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OK Snakes

That's good to know. The next time we find a possum, we'll shew it back to where it came from instead of calling animal control.

Thanks for posting that website, Dawn. That will be valuable to have.

Neil

Thanks for posting that website, Dawn. That will be valuable to have.

Neil