I am also among the folks that doubt that you saw copperheads. Copperheads are sort of the pitbulls of the snake world, if you’ll pardon the analogy - if someone sees a snake and they’re scared of it, it’s a copperhead. Copperheads are incredibly distinctive - once you see one, you’ll never doubt the identification again. They are short and thick, unlike most snakes in the mid-Atlantic, with an unmistakable viper’s triangular head. The color/copper glints vary in season, but the pattern is always reconizable.
The classic situation in which people get bitten are around logpiles, moving firewood and gardening, reaching in and around dead leaf litter. I also once saw one when moving a package of roofing shingles - the snake had gotten into the pack to get warm, since shingles hold the heat. So I’m thinking the snakes around the creek were likely something else.
The recommendation above for checking with your local vets for snake bite protocol is an excellent one. Also, even though the chance of snake bite is low, and envenomated snake bite even lower; if it does happen, check and make sure the provider you’re headed to has in date antivenin. It’s expensive and has a short shelf life, so ERs and Urgent Cares often don’t have it in stock.
Antivenom is not the kind of thing most vets keep in stock, but it’s worth knowing which of your local hospitals/vet schools has it on hand (if your vet doesn’t already know).
Is she not saying “When they bite, the juveniles are more likely to dump venom, before they age & learn life skills.”? Because that’s literally what I’m talking about. The whole venom dump thing is now considered to be discredited.
Honestly, most vets and doctors do not know how to properly treat a snake bite. They are treating based on outdated data and misinformation. I know it goes against what we are told, but one of the best places for snake bite information is on Facebook and it’s called the National Snakebite Support group. Only experts are allowed to comment on posts made by people who have been bitten or are with people/animals who have been bitten. Dr Spencer Greene is in that group and often comments. He is one of the foremost experts on snake bites and treating snake bites in the US.
I’ve been living in the south and on farms or in barns for 50 years. No one I know of has ever been bitten by a snake. We had one puppy get popped by a young copperhead, his head blew up and the vet gave him some meds, but nothing serious.
Get a busy farm dog or two and their activity will help ease you mind/keep snakes at bay.
I thought that @wildlifer 's point was not the amount of venom in young snakes vs old, but that the older snakes will often inject less (or none) of the venom they possess, and the young ones tend to inject all of theirs, being too young to have learned to conserve.
skydy, I believe that is a myth too. There’s a whole chapter on that one in one of the books I recently bought - can’t consult it now because my son packed it up LOL…
If there is updated information, than I would love to see it if you can find it to share. If more recent research has proven that incorrect, than I am happy to be corrected.
I agree that it was probably water snakes, which look like copperheads in a way. There should be a ‘buffer’ between any type of soil erosion or clearing and a creek - sediment run off into a creek as well as manure which is fertilizer, can change the ph in the water making it hard for aquatic life to survive, plus creeks flow into rivers and rivers flow into the ocean - so it’s important to keep sediment from going into the creek - a silt fence and plants between the creek and development of any kind.
Small animal ER vet here… I did my internship in Atlanta before returning to Florida. Relative to Florida pit vipers (moccasins, rattlesnakes), copperheads are kind of wimpy when it comes to their venom. We rarely had to give antivenin to copperhead bites whereas we can pour 10+ vials into a bad rattlesnake bite down here.
In my experience, dogs are the most likely to get bit because they are the most likely to be bothering the snake to the point it has to defend itself. Like other pit vipers, there is local tissue reaction- pain and swelling, sometimes necrosis of the skin after a few days, and then there are systemic effects- problems clotting blood, low blood pressure, less commonly kidney injury, neurologic signs. Benadryl and steroids do nothing for snake bites, so don’t let any vet give your dog “shock dose steroids” for a bite. Benadryl is fairly harmless, but steroids can do some serious damage in addition to not helping. Treatment is antivenin if there are clotting abnormalities otherwise just pain meds (not NSAIDs because of kidney and clotting implications). Dogs can have reactions to antivenin because it is typically equine or ovine antibodies. Reactions can be mild to severe, life threatening.
Rattlesnake vaccines have no proven benefit and can actually increase risk of an anaphylactic reaction to the snake bite itself.
Hope that helps, snake envenomations in a nutshell for dogs and cats.
Hi Everyone,
I haven’t seen any of the copperheads, just the contractor, husband and grown daughter. We put up a fence between the pens and the creek, so I’m not concerned about any runoff. There’s lots of brush, large rocks, etc. on the banks due to the soil type (sandy loam). I asked the contractor if he could have been mistaken about the identification. He didn’t think so. He was in an excavator at the time and just continued to work. Occasionally we take our 8-lb. chihuahua to run in the fields, but he doesn’t go down the banks. Our property is a little isolated (while mowing the front yard yesterday I found 7 piles of deer poop)!
I really like our current snake. I think she’s a gray rat snake about 5-6 feet long. Sometimes she comes up from the creek and sometimes she pokes her head out of the washrack drain. She decided she was going to shed in our feed room and there were long pieces of skin all over. Another snake we had, Keeper, used to leave me a present once a week, so I knew he was still there (and always thankful for it).
I really appreciate all the links and information. Thanks again!
I haven’t looked up the studies, but I know they are a few. I am going by what the herpetologists who are actively working with snakes have told me is now considered the accepted information. If I remember today, I’ll contact a few and have them give me some sources for you to read. I know that Snake Bite Foundation has information on it’s website concerning the “myth” as does the University of Arizona’s Viper Institute among others. I just do not have the exact links. ** “Myth” in quotes because it used to be considered true and I couldn’t think of a better term to call it lol
skydy- that is now considered false
I’m a little twitchy about snakes and snake ids after having to repeatedly argue mis-ids and misinformation of and about snakes with people, mostly men, who think they know better than scientists and people who work in the field every day. I literally argued with a man for an hour or more, offered every herpetologist at my disposal, and even with them agreeing with me, he went on to say that he wasn’t going to argue, but that we would have to agree to disagree. He would not admit that he was wrong and that the snake he was misidentifying was in fact a venomous cottonmouth because “all cottonmouths are black”. Can you hear my eyes rolling? lol
If you get a chance, I’d love to see the sources & I will look at the ones you mentioned as well. I hate misinformation too, so thank you very much for the update so I can look into it & stop saying things if they aren’t accurate. We can call it an update instead of a myth – we’re always learning new things, it’s no different from any other field.
I hear you on the twitchy part, LOL. I have lived that conversation MANY times. I’ve spent almost 20 years doing field work by this point & so often, random roadside person is DEFINITELY sure they the undisputed expert, sigh. My favourite cottonmouth assertion from random person: “cottonmouths can’t bite underwater.” Gee, that must make life hard for them, since they eat fish… scratches head I guess they just have to wait for a fish to jump…
As a little tangent, yet related funny story – I have become slower to tell people that what they saw is impossible (or rather, I state the caveat that it is probably impossible). A few years ago, someone called us & insisted they saw a lion roaming one of our gamelands. We sighed & said, it was probably a large housecat or a bobcat (people are really bad at sizes). Caller insisted, “No, it was a lion, like Simba!!” I think we ended with our polite “thank you for your input.” Well, lo & behold, a day later, we learned that a big cat rescue located nearby did in fact have an adult male lion escape & it was wandering the gamelands. It was successfully recaptured & we laughed & apologized for not believing the person who reported it. Up until about a year ago, it was legal to have big cats as pets in NC, so there are a lot of them here.
So while people are often wrong (almost always about snakes), every once in a while strange things do happen!
Me too! Although I have to admit I have learned a lot of interesting facts about snakes on this thread. The snake who pops her head out of the drain to welcome OP sounds very personable though.
I have no idea if the young snake venom dumping is true or not. I thought perhaps wildlifer’s post was being misunderstood, that was my only comment. I have no idea if the theory has been proved or disproved.
I did have a horse who the vet believed was bitten by a copperhead. I believed so as well as there had been a very angry copperhead in the hay room once that my then husband had to dispatch. They are quite striking in their markings, probably better to appreciate them when the snake is not incredibly agitated.:eek:
There were visible fang punctures behind my horse’s nostril and a great deal of swelling that was traveling too close to his throatlatch area for comfort. Vet used steroids and benadryl because the swelling was beginning to affect his breathing. It took the vet 2 hours to arrive, we were in a very rural area and he had a lot of ground to cover. The medication reduced the swelling and there was no infection or necrosis. There was no discussion of antivenin but this was 30 years ago+. :yes:
That experience and a rattlesnake bite to my dog’s nose when I was a child are the only snakebite experiences I’ve had. The horse swelled up much more than the dog. Different snakes though, and in different areas of the country.
Just wanted to commend the OP for being pro-snake!!!
I love snakes around the barn. So many snake threads here are people seeking advice to rid or destroy them, but snakes are so beneficial to the barn ecosystem. And they’re neat animals too.
Yay OP, hope you love your new farm, snakes n’ all!
As a side note, I have ‘rescued’ several friends from “deadly copperheads” in their yards/homes. All turned out to be non-copperheads, nonvenomous. One was a lovely eastern milksnake with a darling personality, very easy to mis-identify due to the coloring.
@LittleMare , thank you for this post. Lots of good information here, especially regarding the rattlesnake vaccine. I had my dogs vaccinated with the rattlesnake vaccine once, years ago, but couldn’t find any vet that carried it after that. Sounds like that is actually a good thing. We have both copperheads and timber rattlers around my farm. I know the copperheads are around but actually haven’t seen any in the past couple of years. Unfortunately we generally see at least one rattler a year. We had one this summer that was dangerously close to the house. I don’t worry too much about the copperheads and my animals but the timber rattlers scare the heck out of me.
Rattlesnakes are the one thing I wish I could change about living in the country.
All the hunters around here who keep bird dogs do snake aversion training with their dogs. If one bites your dog you give them Benadryl @ 1mg per pound and go to the vet for antibiotics. One got my old mare on the face over the sinus hole in her skull. Huge swelling, antibiotics and I was flushing antiseptic through the puncture, sinus hole, and out through the nose twice a day for a week
