Rattlesnakes and bears

[JackandMo]

Although I know there are dangerous critters on the trails, I’ve recently learned that the trail we use does have rattlesnakes and bears (even mamas with cubs!) Hearing first hand accounts of an encounter made it really real!!!

Our trails are away from civilization, and it’s easy to get lost out there.

I’ll be checking into local laws concerning firearms, but I do have a 9mm.

Has anyone experienced either on the trail, and what would be your course of action if you came face to face. Do you carry medical kits of any sort? The research I’ve done indicates pepper spray is a prefered defense against bears - how would it affect horses?

Or…should I just say yeehaw and gallop full speed away?

[Nezzy]

not sure if you have Black Bear or Grizzley. We have Black bear here and i have encountered a mother with her 3 babies. They actually Ran in front of me, crossing my path. They were going pretty fast and i was not scared at all. Neither was my horse. There were a couple other riders with me. I am not afriad of black bear. They do not want any confrontation, they just want to be left alone. We have Rattlers here too, but i’ve never seen one in my entire life. ( age 41). I am guessing maybe the hoofbeats are noticeable to the snakes and they slink away. Not sure.

[JackandMo]

I’ve seen black bear on the side of the road here, so I’m assuming that’s what they are.

As for snakes, we believe we encountered one as it was slinking away although I’ve no clue what type it was.

I think I watch too many movies - I see black bear running towards us and snakes waiting to strike in my mind!

[chicamuxen1]

Turn the TV off, go riding, quit worrying.

Bonnie S

[system]

Snakebites

No bears here, but we do have the occasional cougar. (I may be wrong, but it seems to me that horses can detect a big cat from a lo-ong way away and will emphatically let a rider know it’s there and WILL be avoided.)

As for rattlesnakes, here they’re just a fact of life. The ones that decide to hang around the barns, pens, and/or houses are dispatched as quickly as possible. Even so, we’ve had two horses bitten in the last 15 mos. Here’s a photo of one shortly after he arrived at the vet’s.
http://pages.prodigy.net/bpb1123/photos/snakebit.jpg
The poor old guy (he’s 25) was bitten mid face and could hardly breathe (think the worst snoring ever heard x 1000) when I found him. He’d been bitten less than an hour before. . The other one was bitten just above the rf coronary band. Both recovered completely without antivenin. The old timer was back to normal within a week but it took about a month of rest and daily ice water soaks for the swelling to completely disappear in the other one. Both were at the vet clinic within 2 hours of the bite.

When far afield we carry everything to treat for snakebite except antivenin. On trails where poisonous snakes are known to be present it might be as useful as a 9mm. :yes:

Nezzy, whether a snake will slink away in response to the vibrations of hoofbeats is to some extent temperature dependent. I’ve had a horse walk within 3 ft. of a rattler that was in a sunny spot trying to warm up one cool spring morning. Fortunately the snake was warm enough to rattle when we got that close, but apparently not warm enough to strike, or maybe it just cut us some slack ;).

[jeano]

If you decide to pack the 9 give some prayerful consideration to getting your horse accustomed to having a gun fired in his immediate vicinity…

Bears would not concern me too much, and snakes are a fact of life where I live–we’ve had cottonmouths on the pond dam and in the pond, rattlesnakes all over the place, and I’ve had to chase baby copperheads off the front porch (the adults hang out in the chicken coop.)

Knock on wood, over ten years here and sum total of venomous snake bites accumulated by 2 humans, 5 dogs, 2-4 horses and various visiting firemen has been zero. Total of snakes shot by Mr Jeano for being in the kill zone, fewer than ten. I got the worst injury of my riding life when a horse shied out from underneath me due to a rattlesnake, though–landed on my sciatic. Hurt like hell for weeks.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been bitten by a snake, a non-venomous rat snake that was going after my baby chicks. I grabbed him without gloves and he nipped me.

[JackandMo]

Thanks. I’m not worrying myself over it, but I do want to be prepared for a worse case scenario. I know that horses can “sense” danger.

Years ago on the trail with my QH, all the horses started getting real spooky. We assumed there was some wild beast in the vicinity. Of course, my QH is a scaredy cat if he sees a turkey, so for all I know, it was a chicken hiding in the brush.

I can just see me on the trail, spraying pepper spray at some poor bear just eatin’ berries, screaming at the top of my lungs, and my poor horse being blinded by my idiocy.

Of course, my ASB is pretty girly, and I imagine if he saw a bear, he’d hike up his skirt and high tail it out of there!!!

[jlrcoats]

I think my horse must think bears are big dogs. We encounter them often in the virginia mountains. They don’t want anything to do with people and high tail it out of there the minute they see or hear you. Horses could care less about them.

[Beverley]

Typically, bears and mountain lions are going to be long gone before you know they are there- my horse will let me know if he smells something, and remains alert, but no biggie. In grizzly country, the universal rule as I was taught is- it’s the bear’s trail, let him/her have it when necessary! But the only time I would be concerned is being inadvertantly between a momma and her cubs. If in heavy woods or willows, it’s often prudent to just make lots of noise so they know you are coming. I carried bear spray on my recent treks in Wyoming and Montana- on my person- and others had guns, but truthfully I would not consider using either one from the back of the horse- when I would need them is if I am on the ground, separated from the horse, and facing an angry bear. Then, if using pepper spray, I just hope I am upwind from the bear otherwise we’ll all be rolling around on the ground screaming in pain!

However, hmmm, putting it delicately…mares in heat, as well as, er, humans in heat, ARE an attractant for both bears and cougars, they can smell blood from miles away- something to keep in mind.

As for snakes- can’t say how many times my horses have stepped on or over one over the decades, rattlers, moccasins, copperheads, never a concern. I do avoid certain trails, where I know rattlers might be sunning themselves say at elbow level- why take chances? But generally they are going to be more active in the transitional am and pm hours- most of the day, they are in the shade, keeping as still as possible, they do get quickly stressed by moving in the heat. The one time I was on a horse and a rattlesnake was noticed, in a shady spot, and commenced to rattling (just before the cowboys killed it)- my horse definitely took notice and stayed a respectful distance away from the offending noise.

[SharonA]

For me, carrying a gun (not that I know anything about them) would be a bad idea – fumbling with the gun, on a scared horse, and then actually firing the gun and then lying on the ground as my horse took off, does not sound fun. I used to carry pepper spray to ward off human predators who might be lurking in the woods, but it was confiscated at some airport somewhere sometime after 9/11, so now I just go ride.

My horse is used to me singing to her on the trail, and my singing scares away most other forms of life and I just hope for the best regarding the rest of it. Otherwise one can drive oneself crazy with worrying. The good vastly, vastly outweighs the risky about trailriding.

[Painted_Horse]

Horses learn to deal with the gunshot pretty quickly. I’ve taught all of mine to tolerate a pistol being fired. I do my best to point it away from their ears.

You can’t kill a bear fast enough with most pistols to do much good. They are best used as a Noise maker to persuade a bear to move on. A bear has the largest Adrenal glade in a mammal. They are hard to kill once the adrenaline gets flowing. Unless you break them down. Broken Spine, Neck, Shoulder, they are going to run a hundred yards after you shoot them. So don’t shot one unless you have no choice. Just use the gun as a noise maker. And most black bears will run from you, unless you have them cornered.

Snakes do a good job of controlling rodents. Leave them be. Unless they are making your porch & steps their home. A 9mm with bird shot would be a better choice to shoot them with than jacketed bullets. Many trail riders carry a 6" length of hose. If their horse gets bit on the nose. shove the hose up the nostril, before it swells. Horses can not breath through their mouth. So their biggest risk from a rattle snake is suffocation from the nose swelling shut.

Anti venom is administered by body weight. You can not afford enough antivenom for your horse. So it’s not a pratical application to try and carry it for the horses. The horse is large enough that the venom will not kill them. The swelling or the infection afterwards are the problem.