Tonight, armed only with a bamboo garden rake and stick, I poked a cobra and really pissed it off!

I had just taken a beer, laptop and a uni textbook out to the garden to read a little before bed. I saw the cat (that frequently shits here) doing something in the corner and thinking I was saving a frog’s life, threw a small handful of dust/soil in its direction and heard a big ‘hiss’.

I’d really annoyed a monocled cobra whose bites “causes the highest fatality due to snake venom poisoning in Thailand”. Rather than let it escape / hide in the garden / find a way into the house, I kept it where it was with the rake until the local snake man (a Texan who think’s this kind of stuff is normal) came to catch, bag and release it.

Before the snake-man arrived in his boxers, with only a snake bag, the cobra (about 1 – 1.5m) reared up, opened its hood and struck the rake a couple of times. In accordance to what we’re all told, all it really wanted to do was get away from me. Unfortunately, towards the kitchen, bike storage, pantry and other places we didn’t want it to hide in. That’s where I really pissed it off, keeping it where it didn’t want to be.

Perhaps the scariest situation I’ve ever been in. My wife’s screaming didn’t help and, to make it worse, the photo of me being brave was rubbish!

There’s just something about snakes and spiders that scare the bejeezus out of me!

My first rule with snakes is leave well alone… As most say they will happily piss off rather than take up the fight. Not sure about trying to corner one in the garden

But cobras, when they find an area they like, hang around until there’s a reason to leave. They can lay a lot of eggs. The young are killers as soon as they hatch and they often return to an existing nest year after year.

While we check the garden and our nearly four year old knows what to do if he sees snakes etc, our 18 month old wanders around the house and garden freely and would certainly try to catch it! Better man up and know it’s been released in the jungle.

Screaming is nothing to be ashamed of, I squealed after a thunder clap a few weeks ago. people still point and giggle at me.

That photo – MakeRedSquigglesHistory 🙂

That said, I’d not be brave enough to take on a cobra without a lot more than a rake and a bit of tree.

Beautiful thing that, you did good

It’s only a little tadpole. Good grief 🙄

Good on you for not killing it.

haha bearnecessities 🙂

No, nothing gets killed here. Not unless it’s good eating anyway!

Time to get a pet mongoose!!

Meh, we encouraged mongoose for this reason when I was a kid in India. That and local villagers who liked nothing more than a mad chase through the fields after lethal snakes, with all us kids in tow…. 😯

can’t see it in the pic, is it in the crack under the fence panel?

That lawn needs re-seeding.

Jekkyl – terrible photo, I know. Minutes later it was where I’m standing swaying it’s hood in the air. The photo’s were too blurred / shaky to use 🙂
Near the base of the concrete wall is a 6″ wide step or ledge. It’s pressed into the right angle there. It was amazing how long and thin it could make itself there vs contracted and thicker when more attack/defense as opposed to ‘hiding’.
The dark line, beautifully circled in red, is the snake. It’s head was behind that right-most palm tree trunk.

globalti – those big butress roots have stopped any hope of grass growing there. It also becomes a big puddle during wet season and is in the shade of the big tree.

Good that you did not kill it coz your area must be full of pest like rats hence it’s there as pest control.

It’s a nice looking cobra too. My parents house used to cobras from time to time in the kitchen. The cats and dogs will alert us when there a snake in the house. 😀

We don’t call local snake catcher coz that will only go straight to someone else dinner plate.

Good job. Mrsmidlife’s dad was the local snake man when she was growing up in Nigeria, they used to get call outs to go clear all sorts of critters from in and under people’s houses. He was a zoologist involved in collecting for and running the zoo in north Nigeria in the 70s. His mate (and I guess boss) has recently stuck up a load of photos of the time on a website:
http://www.bobgolding.co.uk/

chewkw:

Never seen a rat around. These snakes come for the frogs and lizards.
Monocled cobras are quite common so, if I liked eating them, I would have killed it. I don’t have a problem with that. I’ve never killed an animal unless to eat (except for that poor squirrel vs Volvo at 60mph).

Snakeman Ed is the catcher and releaser. No reason for him to hurt the snake. They get moved from the village to the jungle though. Too many children around to risk it.
Ed used to catch rattle snakes for beer money when he was at college and sell them to anti-venin-making snake farms and is remarkably calm doing what had me shaking for hours. Like I said, he came in boxershorts and flip-flops with only a bag to put it in

He does have an axe with a 2m handle for pit vipers though as they’re “vicious, nasty, bitey c—‘s so I don’t mess around”

When I was a leader for Ramblers Holidays in the French Alps we had a herpatologist in the first walking group, an elderly man who had been the Government Chief Vet in Kenya (prononced Keenya) all his life. He had a Home Office licence to import snakes and reptiles into the UK and on day one of his holiday he managed to get bitten by a sand viper, vipera ammodytes, which is especially poisonous. We had walked on ahead so he stuffed it in a bag in his rucsac and strolled back down to the hotel for a lie-down. When he got back the hotel staff insisted on calling an ambulance and he was taken to Annemasse hospital where he refused anti-venom, saying it could kill him, but did allow them to put him on a drip. All the time he was writing notes in his notebook. He was back the next day, stripped to the waist, lifting boulders and shaking saplings. He kept the viper and several other reptiles in his cupboard for the two weeks so Madame Suzanne the chambermaid reused to go in there.

I thought this thread was going to be about a mouse in the house of something.

I’ll let you off this time 😉

Lovely looking animal, but I’d be packing my whack if that slivered along whilst I was enjoying a beer in the Garden.

makecoldplayhistory – Member
Never seen a rat around. These snakes come for the frogs and lizards.

Yes, the snake could be following it’s food source … 😛

The cats and dogs will alert us when there a snake in the house.

“Mum the cat’s dead again, there must be a snake in the house”

“Mum the cat’s dead again, there must be a snake in the house”

Genuinely laughed out loud 🙂

Jeez! I Shit my Endura’s on Friday night when a deer ran out in front of me in the woods. Not sure how I would react to a Cobra!

I had to deal with a scorpion in Bali while on holiday. I ended up killing it in the bathroom with the candlestick. Unfortunately it couldn’t get out without help as there was a tiled step down, and after lots of contemplation I decided trying to help it wasn’t the best course of action.

Felt awful, but it would have been worse if one of my sisters or my folks stepped on it in the dark.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/4iyopp]A rather large evening visitor[/url] by Neil Cain, on Flickr

hmmm, I think I’ve had a snake free year so far though others are spotting the little blighters (2m)

he managed to get bitten by a sand viper, vipera ammodytes, which is especially poisonous. We had walked on ahead so he stuffed it in a bag in his rucsac and strolled back down to the hotel

There was a bush walker here who was embarrassed about getting bitten on the arse while peeing in the bushes, she didn’t tell anyone. Guess the outcome…

I ended up killing it in the bathroom with the candlestick.

Dammit. I was sure it was Colonel Mustard.

pah! They’re only like a bee sting pimpmaster. Could have shepherded it outside with a flip flip.

The wee ones are the bad ones.

I found this out googling the next day after tapping a small one onto a piece of paper, carrying the paper to the door and throwing it in a bush.

Dammit. I was sure it was Colonel Mustard.

8)

pah! They’re only like a bee sting pimpmaster. Could have shepherded it outside with a flip flip.

The wee ones are the bad ones.

I heard this too, afterwards. And then I saw this (well out of harms way) which I left well alone. 😉

[url=https://flic.kr/p/4iCq1y]The previous evening visitor’s smaller brother[/url] by Neil Cain, on Flickr

There was a bush walker here who was embarrassed about getting bitten on the arse while peeing in the bushes, she didn’t tell anyone. Guess the outcome…

swollen beaver?

No, a bot more serious

And people here worry about finding a Steonopsis spider in the cupboard!