Reptile & Amphibian Forums

So this snake decided to say Hi to me today while I was doing yard work. I live in Middle TN.

This pic I put two that I took together. The one on the left is the snakes top. The one on the right is the snakes belly, if you look close you can see the snakes head in the bottom of the pic between the two leaves. I threw it away from me twice with the rake and once I hit it with the flat of the comb rake it went under some rocks vs. come back my way.

It was a small snake so I figure it is young.

Anyone know what type it is? Should I be worried about it and if any more of them are around? I have two kids and bunches of animals just want to make sure it is ok for my kids to still play in the yard and the tall grass.

Red-bellied Snake (Storeria occipitomaculata. A smnall species. They don't get much bigger than that. Harmless as a nightcrawler. Non-venomous.
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2 tham radix
1 Chicago Tham s. semifasciatus
2 elaphe vulpina
1 gray tiger salamander
4 Aphonopelma hentzi
1 G rosea
1 Haplo minax
1 Brachy angustum
1 Brachy sabulosum
1 Brachy vagans
1 Cent. hentzi scorp

Thank you so much for putting my mind at ease.

I threw it away from me twice with the rake and once I hit it with the flat of the comb rake it went under some rocks vs. come back my way.

Snakes don't "come back your way", even large snakes. That is simply an old wives tail. Many of us on here have dealt with thousands of wild snakes and it just doesn't happen in spite of the urban (rural) legends.

What you did was maim a completely harmless (actually beneficial slug-eating) garden resident and the leave it to crawl off and suffer a slow agonizing death. You very likely broke its back, and it will be forced to drag that paralyzed posterior around until it starves to death over several weeks or months.

If you feel the need to kill the animal in your yard, which is completely understandable, make sure you kill it outright. If you have to hit it 10x with the rake, finish the job.

Not trying to lecture, just don't like see animal's suffer needlessly.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

I could not have said it better.

I agree with everything Chris has said here, I would add that that you are a human being and with that you have a moral responsiblity to educate yourself and not to kill needlessly. Even if it was a venomous snake, the attitude that anything that can defend itself should be killed is apprehensible! A venomous snake will leave you alone if you leave it alone, they are so wary of humans that the odds are that you will never meet one. Believe it or not you can keep your children safe by simply educating them on respecting wild animals. I have heard people say that their children are too young to understand, my response is,if they are too young to understand then they shouldn't be playing outside unsupervised anyway.

While I appreciate the sentiment you are expressing about education, I think people have a right to feel comfortable in their homes and yards. This is particularly true of parents with young children.

I don't like that people kill snakes out of ignorance, but I don't think I have the right to tell them they should live in fear of one of their children being injured. Yes, education is a better answer in the long term, but it wasn't an option at the moment this snake was found. My particular beef here was that the snake was allowed to suffer unnecessarily.

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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

We'll have to disagree then. I stand firm on the concept that venomous snakes should be repected, and allowed to live. If they are in your back yard, remember it goes both ways, you are in their yard as well. And interestingly enough they will seek to avoid you and to live in peace given the chance, while human nature seeks a pre-emptive strike, kind of ironic, that they are the ones treated like monsters.

you didnt have to hit a tiny little snake with a rake and i know for sure that a little redbelly snake didnt come after you. Ive caught a six foot long ratsnake that tried to get away as fast as it could and i actually had to chase it to catch it.

Sorry it took me a bit to get back here and check the other messages, we've had a few issues here that needed fixing due to the flood we just went through (I'm in TN).

While I was cleaning off my fence line of some of the junk/leaves/branches that collected on it thanks to the tons of rain we got on the 1st and 2nd is when this snake came out. Each time I threw it away from me I'd scooped it up with the rake so I wouldn't hurt it with the hopes it would just go into the rocks and we'd both be fine, but twice it came back my direction after I threw it, when I finally smacked it with the rake it did finally go to the rocks.

That night I was talking to one of my neighbors who has snakes and he went and dug around in the rocks (a colvert that comes off the road to my property) and dug around a bit and found that snake and 3 others of a different kind (he said what they were but I didn't pay attention) he said that the orange belly one is not hurt and that he is going to keep all the snakes and add them to his collection.

I'm sorry if I angered people here about my desire not to deal with the snake (I normally leave them alone if they leave me alone, we have a black snake in our barn that has been there for 2 years and we are fine with it, it leaves our goats/dogs and chickes alone and we leave it alone)

Thanks again for all the info I got on this site.