We have seen an inordinate number of rattlesnakes around PCC® Headquarters in Eastern Colorado the last four weeks. Tyson and Becky Pharo are finding them out and about on the ranch. Deanna and I are finding them during our evening walks with our dog Chico. Most are in or near fence lines.
You will remember that I carry a garden hoe on my morning and evening walks to dig up goathead stickers. That hoe has proven to be a very effective tool when it comes to slaying snakes. We have been able to decapitate most of them before they slither down a nearby hole.
Even more unusual, nearly half of the rattlesnakes we find are accompanied by five to eight babies. I have seen babies before – but not in these numbers. One night when I was headed to Texas to evaluate bulls, Deanna came upon five or six babies all wadded up together. I don’t know what happened – but when I returned home from Texas my hoe was slightly bent up.
I have always had a healthy fear of rattlesnakes. I jump when I see a snake skin. Over the years, I have dealt with many cows, calves and horses that suffered a rattlesnake bite on the nose or face. The swelling pretty much shuts down breathing. Fortunately, I have never had a dog get snakebit.
I have been collecting rattlesnake rattles for most of my life. See picture above. When our sons, Trapper and Tyson, were in junior high and high school we would go snake hunting nearly every Sunday afternoon in October. On a good afternoon, we would get 15 snakes. We caught a few of the bigger snakes with my snake-catching tool and brought them home alive in a five-gallon bucket. Tyson has tanned some skins and had a few snakes mounted.
In contrast… my longtime friend and mentor, the late Chip Hines, reached a point in his life that he would not kill a rattlesnake. He might relocate them when they were too close to the house, but he did not kill them. Chip felt that every living organism was where it was for a reason. Chip did not have goathead stickers on his sandy ranch – but he did have some hated sandburs. While taking a pasture walk with Chip, I reached down to pull a sandbur. He stopped me.