Tina was down at the old barn, cleaning up around the outside and preparing to move the shelving unit to the feed room in the new barn. She had three or four rolls of heavy rubberized belt that came off a conveyer at the gravel pit she had been cutting to length and using in the stalls as stall mat stacked along the outside wall. When she went to roll the first away from the wall, part of the inside of the roll moved.
Turned out that part of the rubberized roll was a five foot long three inch thick cottonmouth water moccasin hiding from the heat. It crawled thru the rolls and under the edge of the barn wall, she ran around into the barn and trapped it, so it couldn't hide and surprise her later. (More importantly, one of the grandkids.) When she put it down, babies, live babies spilled out. She put them all in the pond, food for the turtles and panfish and bass. The water boiled.We don't put down the regular snakes, they keep down the rat, mice, and vermin population. But just last week we had grandchildren here. They aren't allowed to play in the barns, but the older one had ducked in a stall to ...
... um .. Tinkle? 
A cotton mouth attached to your butt would put a damper on your day. It's dark in the stalls at various points in the day... not smart.Tina has talked to the Granddaughter ...
She went online and checked, she didn't know Cottonmouths gave birth to live babies. Yup.
It's also copperhead birthing season... Oh No...
Keep a sharp eye out. They are like Snipers, masters at camoflauge.- copperhead.jpg (237.17 KiB) Viewed 2291 times
