Rattlesnake Behavior Question

[texasrig]

My sister stepped out onto her back porch last night to have a smoke and had a rattlesnake sitting at the bottom of her porch steps. Her description of the snake makes it sound like it could have the staring role in Anaconda 3 but I sure in reality it was an average sized snake. She was to afraid to try and kill it so she just turned out the light and left it alone. She lives in a trailer on the edge of town with open fields across the street from her. I'm kind of worried that thing may go up under the trailer and hang out for a while. She has two young children and I'm not sure if she should be worried or not. In your experiance will a rattlesnake hang around an area like that or is it more likley that it will move back out into the open fields?

Thanks for any advice
Session

[bsills]

probably lives close to there, shelter from the weather and warmth at night

[leasecommander]

Protection and food, mice and rats, maybe she should get a cat to keep the rodent population down. We have some around our hunting lease cabin, but there is always dropped corn around and subsequently mice and then, you guessed it...snakes.

[Sparkles]

It just depends on where it actually came from. It could have been living under there this entire time. Definitely have the kids keep their eyes peeled and her as well. I normally don't kill snakes, but when a rattler is that close to a house it needs to go.

[John Paul]

We have a bad snake problem at our house. My wife darn near stepped on a 5 footer 5 wks ago at high noon in our front yard under the oak tree. Guess it was getting some shade?? The next day we got 4 barn cats from a family member. I figured the cats would keep the snakes food source to a min.. Since then no snakes, as I knock on wood.. We usually kill one a wk this time a year in the evening or at night after my birds dogs bay them up but none lately...

[J.B.]

My lab got bit by one this past weekend in open field

[D_Mcvay]

Rattle snakes are going to come more active and be seen on concrete, pavement road, caliche pads and stuff in the next couple of months getting heat off the rocks. And that snake very well could have been trying to get heat off that trailer.

[buckwild17]

Cats & mothballs !!!! Cheap solution !!!!

[nimrodajh]

KILL IT!! no worries then!

[Red Wing R/C]

Had them around my property as well. After a while it became second nature
to eye-ball the steps on the way down. I had some really big Indigo`s
take naps on the steps, especially in the early fall.

[Miki]

I'm sure it lives under the house. Mothballs will keep mice way but sounds like you need to find that snake and kill it.

[okrattler]

It probably crawled under the house in search of food.If it lives under the house it might make a habit of laying in that same spot at night to absorb heat.My brother had one living under the concrete patio on his back porch one time and eventually he saw it laying out on the concrete one night when he turned the porch light on.I'd just take a look around to see if I could find it and for sure keep a close watch around the house because I bet it didn't go very far.

[Atfulldraw]

they will generally move on once they have exhausted their food supply...

Remove the attraction for the food source (mice) and you will solve the snake problem.

Or get a few cats.

[texasrig]

Thanks for the feedback. They have a couple cats and don't knowingly have a rodent problem. Hopfully it was just passing through. I'm going over there Saturday to poke around a little. One thing I know for sure is that I am not crawling under that house anytime soon.

[molossus]

Mothballs don't work. I have found rattlesnakes sleeping on top of a pile of them before. It's a myth - a common one, but a myth all the same.

The more dangerous action would be to try and kill it. This is where the majority of bites occur, not just wandering around. Sure that does happen, but statistically, you are better off just leaving it alone and taking care of the rodent problem.