Snake Bites

She got bit on the side of the jaw and it swole up and she couldn't eat or drink. She got so poor I had to terminate her exisitence.

Daddy told me stories about men shooting their own bird dogs that were snake bit. Bird dogs probably like most dogs always seem to get bitten in the face or head. Years ago he told me he met a man who claimed to be a vetenarian who said it was a shame so many men shot their dogs as he claimed unless the dog was a small puppy or very old they would survive most snakebites because they have an enzyme or some type of immunity process that will eventually defeat the venom and they will recover.

Daddy said the vet told him you should just put the dog in the truck and take him home but don't look at him for a couple of days as you will surely pity him and want to put him out of his misery but do not do it. I don't remember either one of us ever confirming that story as we no longer owned dogs then. Every time I meet a vetenarian I keep meaning to get that story confirmed or debunked but I keep forgetting to ask. Anyone here ever heard such a thing?

But I would have probably done the same thing for the poor creature you did proud texan. I don't think I could have allowed her to suffer any longer if she couldn't drink or eat.
 
Cottonmouths can be very aggressive. I had two experiences with them and thank goodness none of us were bitten. One time on Kentucky Lake we were out boat riding with my Uncle. This cottonmouth was swimming toward us. It jumped in the boat. and tried to attack. My Uncle killed it before it bit any of us.

Another time I was with my husband on Nolan Lake in Kentucky.. I was swimming in area near shore. The cottonmouth came at me. I got in boat just in time. It tried to jump in and my husband hit it with oars he had.

After that I never swam in lake again.

I am scared of snakes and spiders.

I had friend bitten by black widow. She almost died. was sick a long time.
 
I run marsh cattle in guess where....In the marsh. But anyway; I've had cottonmouths SEEM to charge me. I think their mean and evil and they give me the heebie jeebies. I've lost one cow to them but they seem to steer clear of them or I would have lost more I would think.

Another bad thing about a cottonmouth is that when they bite they will occasionally hang on and not let go. When I was a boy we had a milk cow bitten on a t**t by a cottonmouth. She ran from the pasture to the barn with the snake hanging on. My grandfather got a vet to come out to tend to her and the cow recovered but never gave milk again from where she was bitten – the other three worked find.
 
We fortunately don't have any poisonous snakes in the UK apart from the adder which would only be a problem if you were a small child or an elderley person with heart issues.

Saw a program the other day where they put some Mamba poison in a jar of fresh blood and within a minute or two it had turned it into a single jelly like lump.

Scary.
 
My Dad and I ran our catfish lines at about sunrise one morning and as we pulled our boat up under the branches of a willow tree the line was hung from I heard a thump behind me. I looked behind me and there was a cottonmouth trying his best to find a way out of that boat. I became the second person in the history of the world to walk on water cause in half a second I was out of that boat and standing on dry land. I do not like snakes.
 
caught a rattler once, i guess I was 16 or so. I noticed a new trail in the grass heading for the fence. So did I. I had him head in one hand, body looped to the ground, and back up to the other hand then down to the ground. After he got done peeing on me I let him go. Biggest one i ever caught. He was every bit of 8 feet and thick, wow he was a big guy. btw...i never pretended t be a genius :wink:
 
Here is Mrs. Lettice Bryan's snake bite remedy. It from her book, "The Kentucky Housewife" dated 1839.

"The best thing I have ever known tried for the bite of a snake, is tobacco juice. Boil the tobacco till the juice is very strong, and bathe the bite thoroughly, and as soon as you possibly can. Bind it up with some of the tobacco leaves, bathe it frequently with the juice, and occasionally apply fresh leaves. Give the patient enough table salt, mixed in a little water, to vomit him freely before you suffer him to eat any thing. Some chew tobacco, and swallow enough of the ambeer to vomit them speedily. To be sure, it makes them very sick for a few minutes, but it is excellent to defend the stomach from the poison. To assist in keeping down the swelling, you may bathe the defective limb occasionally in strong salt and water. I have known very bad bites, thus treated, cured in a very short time, and after the first few hours the patient experiences but little inconvenience."
 
Spent a lot of time wandering through woods and never had any real issues with the resident timber rattlers and copperheads in those areas. I must admit though that undoubtedly there were several more copperheads quite close to where I walked or sat because they are so masterfully camouflaged. Did work with a fellow whose wife was bitten by a small copperhead in their backyard and took a couple years to heal properly--not life threatening but the damage was persistent. On a backpacking trip before we were married my wife and I came accross half a dozen baby snakes (about eight inches long) in a rocky area, didn't know what they were so looked it up in the library (no internet back then) and realized they were copperheads, presumably with an adult or two in the vicinity, and the picture of a typical den area looked as if it could have been taken where we had been. A little spooky in hindsight.

Have had harmless snakes drop into the canoe as we passed beneath streamside trees. Very startling to say the least. Also had several swim up to the canoe and one take advantage of an inept attempt to shoo it away with a paddle by using the paddle as a boarding ramp. This too caused a certain amount of excitement. It helps to know that you are many hundreds of miles away from the northernmost known territory of cottonmouths at such times, but then how much faith do you have in the people that draw those maps and how out of date might their knowledge be?

Except when you are in a canoe, I would agree that snakes generally seem to lay low or look for the easiest exit to avoid encounters.
 
The three color areas indicate the range of cottonmouth water moccasins. There are three species or one true and two subspecies at any rate they vary in coloration but all carry the same very destructive life threatening venom. Suffice it to say no one would want to suffer envenomation from any of the three.

As you search one will find several range maps and I have used these before to demonstrate to people north of the James River that the likelyhood of that watersnake someone saw in Northern Virginia or Maryland was a watersnake that very well may resemble a cottonmouth but they are not venomous.

Interestingly enough cottonmouths are not limited to southern waters as they can be found in Illinois and Indiana. One doesn't need search very long to find eyewitness accounts of cottonmouths displaying aggression or being territorial. Some may be embellished or exaggerated but certainly not all.
 
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