Fun with Snakes and Potplants for Dummies.

Diwundrin

Diwundrin

Well-known Member
Location
Nth Coast NSW Australia
The signals were all there, unequivocal and too dangerous to ignore. The low hurrumphs, the beady eyed stare, the posture, I was clearly under orders! If Belle didn't have that door opened for her in the next few minutes she would bust and it would be all my fault.

So to instill in her just who exactly is the boss around here I made what passes for a dash for the door.

I threw it open and hit the light switch with perfect coordination, and caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my left eye as Belle shot out the doorway and went right at high speed.

WTF was that? I pondered. Then I noticed a splash of water on the concrete from the spare water bowl near the wall. Near... the pot plants! Ha, thought I, solved. Just a frog I disturbed in his private Jacuzzi. Not to worry.

Belle strolled back, about to re enter the house when she noticed it.... and had to go and sniff it. Then something moved behind the pot plant and she went ballistic!
To prevent the appearance of angry wakened neighbours I grabbed her to get her as quickly and quietly away from the frog hunt as possible when I saw it! And realised what she was so interested in. Aaaaagh!

There under her nose, and my hand on her collar, was around 2 feet of thinnish, shiny brown tail. Snnaaaaake!!!

Forget all those supplements and medications folks! 2 feet of Brown Snake in very close proximity does more to promote physical activity than any medicinal potion ever devised. We were behind glass in seconds!

But I watched it.... and watched it... and...wondered how long the rest of it was, tucked away behind the pots... but... why would it leave it's tail stuck out?? Mmmmm that's strange.

So, having more curiosity than sense I shut Belle in the back room and set out to investigate this odd reptilian behaviour. Armed with a long thin dustpan brush handle I set off like India Jones and snuck the other door open 2 inches. It's right over where 'it' was tucked against step, and poked it.

No reaction. Nothing. It was like poking a copper pipe.

WTF ponderings recurred and I tried it again. siiiiiiigh. I need new glasses!
It's a new fat feeder root from a Rubber Plant two pots away!
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She was only after the frog and is still giving me sly glances and wondering what the hell all that action was about. siiiigh.
 
I like snakes and would have one as a pet if they didn't eat mice of which I am phobic! I have a tarantula spider as a pet.
 
couldn't agree more with Justme!!! mice are dirty, carry haunta virus (sp) and other disease, eat and nest in everything, having a snake just to eat the mice is reason enough. same with tarants will eat a 100 times their weight in bugs every day, very clean, will act as a guard, don't bark (not many dogs will go past them when they are standing) don't bite and you don't need pet insurance for either snakes or trants.
 
Never heard of hantavirus until your post but it still doesn't make me afraid of mice.
I'm not afraid of snakes and spiders either but I am generally wary of venomous creatures and treat them with respect.

I once had a 'pet' redback spider which one of my students collected when I sent the class outside the lab with glass jars to scour the school gardens for specimens. Redbacks are smallish spiders, but have a powerful venom so in retrospect, the exercise was not a wise one. I kept her in a jar and fed her live flies but I must have overdone it because she moulted and died. I haven't felt the desire to keep another spider since then but I tolerate them in the house unless they are in some way dangerous or becoming too numerous.
 
I had a good suspicion, after taking time to think, that it wasn't a Brownie before I got brave Jilly. They don't hang around like that when they're sprung, they take off either for you or away.

Justme, Brown snakes are no 3 on the Global venomous list and responsible for most snake bite deaths here. Nothing against snakes in general but distance improves the relationship between Brownies and humans. They are definitely not 'pet' material.

... and that keeping them to catch mice thing...
couldn't agree more with Justme!!! mice are dirty, carry haunta virus (sp) and other disease, eat and nest in everything, having a snake just to eat the mice is reason enough. same with tarants will eat a 100 times their weight in bugs every day, very clean, will act as a guard, don't bark (not many dogs will go past them when they are standing) don't bite and you don't need pet insurance for either snakes or trants.
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...sure, if it's a smallish python let it have the run of the house by all means, if you can stand the strange stink of it.
But venomous snakes? Loose in the house? To control mice? Might need to talk to someone about that notion and do regular head counts of your kids.
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Also... snakes only eat once a week or less, gonna need a lot of them to control a mouse plague. Get real.

Have a couple of Redback 'pets' behind the washing machine doing their job quite efficiently, they're homebodies and don't travel into the rest of the joint so that's a fine arrangement all round. (Redbacks are the same spider as Black Widows.) Also let our local variety of Tarantulas, the Huntsman spider, have the run of the house to keep other spiders out, except the damned dog keeps catching and crunching them!

Using nature as a control mechanism in our lives has it's limitations folks, one size (and species) don't fit all. Just sayin'.
 
Justme said:
I like snakes and would have one as a pet if they didn't eat mice of which I am phobic! I have a tarantula spider as a pet.
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You'd have to be plain crazy to want a brown snake for a pet.....unless you have a death wish....:danger:

Di, so happy to know that you escaped from that Venomous rubber plant......:magnify:

Seriously though, I'm bloody sure I'd have had a same reaction, especially with
Belle carrying on the way she did. :holymoly:
 
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Yeah, dangerous beasts those Rubber Trees. They're the prettiest things (2 little ones in the big pot) with variegated coloured leaves. I can't believe the size and length of that feeder root! The plants are only a foot high! I can see where all their energy went. Have to wait for the cuz to trace and trim it, I can't shift the pots to get at it. I've taken note of where it is against the brick so I can see how fast it's growing. It can't have been there long as I swept around there about 2 weeks ago. The cuz did the pot plant area last week and he didn't notice it either or he'd have said something, or ripped it off.

Had a laugh about the instincts kicking in but I had a similar close call with one when I first moved here. A real one! ... and bl**dy Belle instigated that episode too. That one's tail flipped up in front of my face but the fangy end was heading for the fence luckily.

Just though it was a bit of fun to mention, wasn't expecting any deep environmental analysis.
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