GTA
All Springer/NP/PCP Air Gun Discussion General => Hunting Gate => Topic started by: claird on August 12, 2010, 04:41:10 PM
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One night a while back my wife went out to the small laying house we have for the chickens to see if we had any eggs. I heard the lid of the house come down suddenly with a bang. She came in and said there was a snake in one of the nests. I loaded up my faithful workhorse Benjamin pumper, she took out the light and lifted the lid. Sure enough there he was but I was surprised that he didn't move out of there in a hurry. Benjamin said BLAM and that was all she wrote. It was a Texas Rat Snake otherwise known as a chicken snake due to their fondness for eggs. When I lifted him out I could see he had swallowed several eggs but had a huge bulge farther back. Wondering what the blazes it was I slit him open with my pocket knife. Ah Ha!
A couple of months before this, my wife found some huge artificial stone eggs. These things are made out of the artificial stone that is being made for counter tops and other products. They are surprising heavy, like a piece of granite. Hens like to lay in a nest with other eggs so she had put one in a nest to see how the hens liked that big boy. They did and the snake apparently thought he had quite a prize. I don't know how long it took him to work this one down but he must have wanted it pretty bad. Snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow large prey but this was an amazing stretch. Also a big load, close to 4 lbs., no wonder he wasn't moving very fast.(http://[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/donchale/IMG_0990.jpg)[/img]
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Ok, let me try that pic again.
(http://[IMG]http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/donchale/IMG_0990.jpg)[/img]
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One more time.
http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/donchale/IMG_0990.jpg (http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h101/donchale/IMG_0990.jpg)
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Wow! That's a mouth full! ;)
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It`s either a small snake or a big rock heh heh. That rock looks like one of those used in those meditation water fountains.
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Cool pic and story. Wow that stone egg weighs 4lbs? Must be like 3-4x the weight of the snake!
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Man I would hate to have seen that come out the other end :)
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These snakes have some bones along their back that help crack the shells of eggs, then they just poot out the shells. Any type of fake eggs that are put into nests to encourage hens to lay there are sometimes called snake eggs. If they swallow one, they can't barf it up, crack it or poot it out. That is the last nest that snake will ever raid. Fatal constipation.
And yes, the egg weighed more than the snake. But you know what, I put that big thing back in the nest and now it has disappeared. I know some possum didn't get it. I wonder how far that snake managed to drag himself. Those snakes are something else. I had to cut one out of the rose arbor for my wife this PM. He got tangeled in some bird netting that was up there, fell out and strangled himself.
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Here is a rattlesnake that ate a small squirrel. Run into this hunting ground squirrels occasionally. The rattlesnakes go into burrows to get the young squeeks..
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y208/richwoods/Ranchsquirrels031.jpg)
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When I was a kid my cousin and I were riding about 100 yards apart looking for some sheep. She started yelling at me to come in a hurry. She had ridden over the top of a pretty good size rattlesnake which was in the process of swallowing a 3/4 grown jackrabbit. He had nailed him dead and she said he had gotten him almost half way down. By the time I got there the snake had managed to spit him out and had disappeared into the shin oak. That was a mouth full for a big snake, but I have no doubt he would have gotten him down. I'll bet those Field Target guys don't have a snake head target that would do a big rattlesnake's head justice. They get really wide. The wonders of the natural world, no wonder I hate being in a city, its a scary depressing place. Being out on a hunt isn't about killing things its about seeing, hearing, smelling and thinking. I used to think it was about killing, but now all my hunts are a complete success. Sometimes I just watch.