That is scary. Wonder if this product would help. Just a few minutes ago I heard our deck gate rattle. I looked out and there was a little racoon just outside our sliding glass door by the breezeway gate. We never know what will wandering around. EP

Here is a link that might be useful: snake away

Gads!That was TOO close.

Two of my dogs were bit by copperhead a few weeks earlier. Could have been me as it was right were I would have walked to turn on sprinklers and I was wearing flip-flops....*Shudder*

Hub's says sulfur sprinkled around edge of yard is suppose to ward off snakes....others say cats wlll keep them out of the yard.

PP

That is scary! So far, we have only seen non-poisonous snakes here, but we have seen more and more different ones this year than ever. Just this week I almost stepped on another 4-foot black snake heading into the veggie garden. I have forced myself to let them alone, but it is hard.

When I hear about people who garden barefoot or in sandals, I wonder about the snake issue.

Be careful.

gld

Thanks for the link, I checked it out and it sounds good. I wonder if it would bother my dogs or poultry. If it would not cause a problem with them I might just get some. I was visiting at my sister's house last night( the family all got in from Florida for my daughter's wedding next week) and my husband said that he saw another copperhead about 15 inches while he was working in the yard. This is getting really bad.
Tammy

If it was really four feet long and a copperhead you could have turned the dead one over to a herp museum as the state record copperhead is 43 1/4 inches and you would have gotten published credit for a record. Of course most people overestimate the size of snakes by about 30% so it could well have been a very large copperhead and still not quite a record. Given that impressive size I'd also consider the possibility it could have been a Prairie Kingsnake especially because it darted away to hide behind a ladder. A copperhead could dart away in warm weather but they're usually pretty slow and deliberate in their movements and standing their ground and waiting people out is usually their response to being pursued rather than darting away. And they tend to hide by staying still rather than moving behind something, whereas kingsnakes like to hide.

It's a good time (or bad time) to find copperheads and other species of snakes as they're in fall migration from their summer foraging grounds to their overwintering dens right now. They move from mid-September to early October and then come out and sun around their dens from early Octover to early November and so people see a lot of snakes in September and early October when they are on the move.

You can try snake-a-way, but its no substitute for caution and common sense. Its effectiveness is pretty widely questioned and the only studies that show it to work are the company's own internal studies (and not to be cynical but they might have a financial interest in claiming it works).

I like the copperheads around my place but I realize I'm in an extremely small minority on that point. They leave me alone as long as I leave them alone. Obviously if I had outdoor pets I'd feel differently as pets tangle with snakes and get bitten quite frequently.

Good luck the next few weeks and soon enough the snakes will be tucked away for the winter (although they will come out but stay close to their dens on very warm winter days..I know someone who found a copperhead at a den entrance on a really warm December day when the high was in the upper 60s). The latest I've seen one at a den entrance is November 11th.

If you read the fine print on snake away it doesnt work on copperheads and think it is cotton mouth snakes. So what is the sense in buying it. The snakes you want most to keep away ignore it. Judy

We have appreciated the input on this forum for the past 3 years since we are on the western edge of the Ozark uplift and much of our wild life and plant life are similar. Also appreciate the feed back on products. This link includes some unusual photography. EP

Here is a link that might be useful: snakes of missouri

Wayne, hope you see this. What kind of dens do the Copperheads choose? I always stay away from rocky places; just want to know if I should ad more places to my list! I am starting to see more Black Snakes. I have seen two around the garden area just this past week.
gld

gld,

You definitely have the right idea of where to avoid if you don't want to find their dens. They like bluffs and rocky areas on south, west and east facing slopes where there are deep cracks in the bluffs or deep fissures in the rocks or holes beneath and between boulders. Usually they will den communally with more than one copperhead in a den and often some other species as well. The one near my house is under a boulder at the edge of a bluff partway up a hillside and is shared with Northern Water Snakes and Eastern Garter Snakes. There is another place near the Missouri River where I can find a dozen communal snake dens near the base of a limestone bluff and several of those dens include a small number of copperheads. One unseasonably warm day in late March this year in the early evening I found 8 adult copperheads basking in 2's and 3's at a total of three different den sites there.

I have an out of print Missouri field guide entitled Reptiles of Missouri by Paul Anderson which describes their densites almost perfectly:

"The site selected most often for hibernation is a limestone ledge on a timbered hillside with a southern, eastern, or western exposure. In most such ledges there are many cracks and fissures with large amounts of loose rock at the base. Here the copperheads can penetrate holes that go far beyond the frost line, and the flat rocks at the base furnish adequate cover when the copperheads are active in the spring and fall. They usually do not den up in large concentrations at any one specific place. A stip of ledge, perhaps a mile in length, may have a number of dens housing a small number of copperheads." (p. 266)

That's as good a description of their dens as I have seen anywhere. In the deep South places like Louisiana and Mississippi they can also den solo inside logs and under single rocks but here where the winters have significant frosts for an extended period of time they almost exclusively use limestone ledges with fissures or rocky areas with significant holes and cracks.

People usually associate a big open cave with snake dens, but the really good snake dens with large numbers of snakes are narrow vertical cracks in bluffs that penetrate into the bluff. They don't look like much from a distance because the entrance itself can be quite narrow. But a spring or fall walk along a limestone ledge can be an enjoyable or harrowing experience depending on your perspective.

Thanks, Wayne. You are my encyclopedia for this type of info in our area!

gld

OOh... I just had an awful shiver, I now know where not to walk at. I am one of these people who don't like snakes. I will try to avoid them if possible. The snake I saw sure looked like the pictures of copperheads that I have seen, now I will have to look some more. Ewww. More shivering.
Thanks,
Tammy

Thanks Enchantedplace for the link on Mo snakes. Wayne, I checked the pictures on this link and coloring and markings were awful similar. Considering it has been several days since this happened, but one thing I do remember is that this one had slits for eyes. I just don't remember if that makes a difference or not and if it was poisonous or not. Anyway thanks again.
Tammy

Tammy,

If it had slits for eye pupils then it was in fact a copperhead. Copperheads, rattlesnakes and cottonmouths have vertical cat like slits for pupils, whereas most snakes have rounded pupils. The eye pupil diagnostic is a good one for distinguising pit vipers from nonvenomous snakes.

Years ago I read that if you put moth balls around your house and shrubs that would keep the snakes away. since then I always sprinkle them around the foundation and shrubs in the fall, maybe its all in my head but I think it works, that was in Iowa and the snakes aren't poisonous but to me a snake is a snake, don't like any of them! Don't know if it will work here in Mo. on these Copperheads but its worth a try. Years ago when I lived down there we had Copperheads under our house, they would come out when we kids were playing in the yard, mom would cut there heads off with a hoe. I guess that is where I first learned to be afraid of snakes. Good luck and try the moth balls and let me know if they work. OHelen

Get a true blood cocker spaniel. Our dog caught over 20 copperheads (she never bothered other snakes~why?)during the span of her life (lived around 13 years). She constantly patroled our yard looking for copperheads (we had a chain link fence around our property). Our den of copperheads were under some railroad ties that circumferenced a tree where our house sits on a slope that leads into the woods. We eventually ripped out the ties & the copperheads have not been such a problem.

The poor dog got bit quite a bit, but you couldn't stop her. It eventually gave her bad arthritis, but she had a great life doing what she loved!

EEEW! Thanks for posting and giving me a quick, slap-in-the face, reality check. I've been going out early mornings before light to turn on my sprinklers...barefoot, without turning on the lights, thinking there could be a snake but also thinking, nah, can't happen to me. I'll be more careful and use common sense after reading your post.