ridecamp@endurance.net: Re: SNAKES, how to prepare?

Re: SNAKES, how to prepare?

Jim Mitchell (navion@lsbsdi2.lightspeed.net)
Thu, 01 May 1997 20:27:30 -0700

> My experience with horses and snakes.....
>
> Horses couldn't care less about snakes. And I am not speaking from
> limited experience. Snakes are RAMPANT around my place.
>
> Out on the trail, every horse I have ever a) ridden and b) seen takes
> absolutely no notice of the snakes (including the rattlesnakes). They
> walk over them, they trot over them, they canter over them, they stand by
> while I wait for them to slither off the path.
>

Interesting because my experience is the opposite. Horses that I have had in natural
range pasture in Cuyama Valley Calif. certainly know the sound of a rattlesnake. (About
10 horses in the last 7 years) They jump away from the sound the minute they hear it.
They also give other snakes a wide berth if they see them. Horses I have never put out
on the range don't have this reaction. Just last week we had two horses out on a ride
here, one from Cuyama and the other a local. A rattlesnake rattled in the grass and the
Cuyama horse jumped away while the local horse couldn't care less.
I believe the range horses sniff around a snake in the grass and get struck at or bit
and learn to avoid them. Many times rattlers strike a bigger animal but do not inject.
And other snakes bite also.

Jim Mitchell
Bakersfield, Ca.

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