Reptile & Amphibian Forums

From the ARKANSAS mountains.
On 46 acres of mountain plateau in border National Forest
After two (not memorable)recent battles with copperheads made nuts by huge juicy locusts invasion, one instance copperhead was above my head in my bean vines and let himself fall on ground besides me,
I will get within two weeks two kings from a local rescuer.my basic questions please :
First basic questions :
- where to release them ?
- should I dig a den for them ? this in order they would feel at home and not run into National Forest
we want them to stay near our residences.
Under my trailer is bare skin now and will not look a good den, specialy with my cats used to move under there.
How kings relate to cats ??????!!
Kings could be disturbed by cats I guess, I have seen from an encounter in a trailer park with a rat snake.
About under the storage building ?
Very low, dogs or coyotes cannot go under there, kings may like it. Will they hibernate under there ?
It that close enough 400 yards, to cabin and my trailer and from there will they come at night to hunt the copperheads
and mice ?
I need to know the size of their territory.

TKS !

It may be a bad idea in more than a few ways.
It may be illegal to release snakes in your area/city/state.
The cats may kill/harm/eat them.
They may just take off-never to be seen again.

It may be better to try and get rid of the food source the snakes you want to remove are feeding on (locusts?)
With little or no food they should move along...as it were.
Copperheads can be feisty and if you're not comfortable with them around, scary I suppose.
Seldom if ever fatal, a bite would certainly cause lots of pain and would not be fun for anyone especially a child or elderly person.
Read as much as you can and educate yourself in their ways. It will help you understand them and possibly live alongside them.
I'd scrap the release of kingsnakes idea.
Good luck!
:Mark
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Surrender Dorothy!

crimsonking.piczo.com/

Thanks Mark
point is those Kings will be wild animals catched by Tommy Young the local DVM who runs the Wildlife Center at Rich Mountain.
They will be no pets, and could be big already.
My cats would not try a big King, just be curious at them.
Tommy Young here is working with people like me living in the wild, far away from any city or any road for that matter, next neighbors are farms at least two miles away as crow flies.
So that Wildlife center knows exactly where it is legal to release snakes.
Eventually other wild animals will be released by him in this place I hope, like rehabilitated hawks (already here, yes I suppose a risk for kings)or wolves or whatever. Still very wild area here in Ouachita Mountains and la Fourche mountains.
Matter of fact the Rangers called on the phone said they would and could do nothing to remove copperheads, and suggested to find King snakes to control population of venimous here.
Remove invasion of locusts could only be done by Moses I reckon...!
JM

Matter of fact the Rangers called on the phone said they would and could do nothing to remove copperheads, and suggested to find King snakes to control population of venimous here.

Oh man not you opened up a can of worms.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"