Kentucky is missing the chickens

Well, call me crazy but this weekend I took the plunge and attended the snake course I mentioned in my previous post. And I have to say, it was really worth while. I knew very little about snakes and now I feel a little less scared and a little more confident about what I must do if I come across one of our legless friends here on the farm.

On day one of the course, we learned a lot about various snakes, their characteristics and behaviour. We then had to identify numerous 'harmless' snakes (by 'harmless' they simply meant 'non-venomous'; they could still bite us!) and practiced a bit of first aid in the case of a snake bite.

The next day we progressed to handling large snakes, of the rather more dangerous variety. Having practiced on a piece of rope (... never has a piece of rope got my heart racing so fast!), we progressed to a molesnake, often mistaken for a Cape Cobra but it is non-venomous.

After flexing our muscles with that one, we then had to deal with the rather more scary lookalike, the Cape Cobra (... eek!) and a more yellow-coloured family member. Then came the Boomslang, a much more slippery customer. When it came to my turn, he'd clearly had enough of being handled and shot up into a tree for safety!

Finally we got to meet a couple of puff adders, including our old friend Kentucky (so named as he was the one removed from our henhouse a few weeks back). Needless to say, I got my own back on him when I had to pop him in a tube so we could all pull faces at him ; )