Great Plains Rat Snakes are our friends.

Great Plains Rat Snake

I'm in the old washhouse the other night and see a large grayish- brown with dark brown splotchy marking of a snake laying all coiled up in a relaxed mode on top of the refridgerator in there. Yikes! It was a very long snake. I backed up a bit in the dim light. Couldn't tell if it was a rattler or a rat snake. Went back the next morning and it was still coiled up where it had been. I wondered if it was sick. I know little about snakes lounging around habits. It appeared to be a rat snake, so I left it alone.

Today, I go back to check on it and it's gone. I look around and it pokes out it's head from under the shelves and flicks out it's tongue a few times. Telling the snake it had no reason to fear me because rat snakes are always welcomed in any shed or barn I own, positive it sensed no fear phermones in the air.

A little research on the Internet and it's discovered to be a Great Plains rat snake. A docile snake by nature that is often kept as a pet as well as it's cousin the corn snake. They make great trainer snakes for people who want to learn how to handle snakes because they are docile and rarely attack unless provoked. They have curved teeth and kill by constriction.

So, I'm leaving the long snake alone. Rat Boy, as I've named him though it might be a female, is welcomed in all of my sheds as well as black runners, garter snakes, and chicken snakes---all known rat and mouse eaters. When I was a kid, I watched a king snake kill and eat a water moccasin down in the pond.