Another Snake We Won't Kill

We were introduced to snakes back in Genesis in the Garden of Eden.  Vile.  Evil.  Devious.  Nasty.  Scheming.  Lying.  Treacherous.  We hate snakes.  We have snakes around here.  Not talking snakes, mind you, but hardly a week goes by that we don't see snakes.  Mostly garter snakes.  We don't ever kill garter snakes.  They are so prevalent around here.  They'll come inside the house sometimes.  We pick them up and toss them back out in the landscaping beds, so they can go about their business of eating frogs and lizards.

Next we have chicken snakes.  Lots of 'em.  In the past, we'd kill them.  We didn't want them eating our eggs.  We'd kill them with a shovel.  We'd kill them with a board or a pipe or any blunt object.  We'd kill them by placing ceramic and wooden eggs in the nesting boxes.  When the fake eggs disappeared, we secretly rejoiced, knowing that the serpent was going to die of a really, really bad case of constipation.  But then... things changed.

Our rat problem out at the barn got out of control.  More rats than we could count.  I poisoned them.  I shot them off the rafters with a .22 rifle loaded with rat shot.  I used classic rat traps.  I even had great success with a 5 gallon bucket half filled with water to drown the rats.  But the best thing we ever did was to stop killing the chicken snakes.  Allowing the chicken snakes to live paid dividends in terms of drastically reducing our rat population.  Chicken snakes get very large and can be scary, but they are docile and generally don't bother you if you don't bother them.

So today, Russ walked out in the garage and yelled, "Hey, there's a big chicken snake right outside the door!"  Except it wasn't a chicken snake.  It was a speckled king snake!  These guys are our friends.  They eat birds, rodents, frogs, lizards, and other SNAKES.  They kill by constricting their prey.  For that reason, we always set these guys free.  Here he is right here:

King Snake in the Garage

King snakes grow to around 48 inches long.  He was shaking his tail at me like a rattle snake, but he never did strike at me.  The speckled king snake is aptly named because every scale has a yellow-white spot.  It is really quite a beautiful snake.  They are gentle.  In fact, some people keep them as pets.  Not us, we'll get him out of our garage and back out into the landscaping so he can do his thing.

Speckled King Snake

I picked him up with a garden tool.  I think he was happy to be back outside.  Garages aren't their natural habitat.  The speckled king snake actually likes wet areas.  Well, he's in the right place.

I hope he stays around.  We want him to take care of "bad" snakes in our area - snakes like the Cottonmouth and the Copperhead.  Maybe he'll find his queen snake and make a family.