Venomous snake in the house - what now?

I have been watching "Snakes in the city" and other videos of snake catchers. If you have located the snake the use of a pipe blocked at the rear, seems to work well. Direct the snake's head towards the end of the pipe and it slithers into the dark hole which it perceives as a hiding place. Pipe is then closed off and the reptile is safely inside. Release it far from the house.

Fat lazy things like puffies and night adders are slow and easy to relocate. I lift them up with a garden rake and dump them in a deep bucket, and put the lid on. I then release them on the other side of the river in the park where the druggies hang out :o

No idea what I would do with anything faster.

A friend of mine made on of those sticks with the V and loop at the end that works effectively. I would use a very long stick for that ;)

Your options are:

1. Catch and release. (If you can.)
2. Sjambok.
3. .22.
4. .410.
5. 12 Bore.

Choose wisely.

Scenario: wife at home with kids; me not. What does one load in a 410 shotgun to kill a snake in the house?

Maybe a snake handling course through ASI would be the best idea? Which cobras local in your area?

Rinkhals
Geelslang

I'm just about up to clearing the occasional brown house snake that I come across here in the Disneyland northern slurbs of JHB. This talk of venomous snakes in the house is making me sweat.

Other snakes in our area include mole snakes, boomslange, draadslange, pythons, sypikslange etc.

Those mostly reported around houses are puffies, cobras, and sometimes a boomslang or a mamba. Please note: these are reported, I do think other non dangerous types are more often found but not necessarily reported.

Snakes in houses do not occur every day but often enough that I want to give it a thought and be prepared if necessary.

Some of the houses next to open fields and especially rocky outcrops have reported up to one snake killed every week, but that is not the average.

Mates of mine who lived in an abandoned SAFICOL forestry village on the Prince Alfred's pass used to have at least a 5m grass verge around their houses because boomslange would come ito the houses through trees or shrubs that were up against them.

Stayed there often many years ago and made a very thorough job of checking my bed, pants, shoes etc before I 'engaged' with them.

Snakes is one if the big reasons why the rural villages have empty areas around the housing.

Snakes do not like moving over open terrain.

Make a snake pole and do your checks. They easier to deal with than stalking a buck.

Scenario: wife at home with kids; me not. What does one load in a 410 shotgun to kill a snake in the house?

The smallest shot size available. However, discharging any FA and especially a shotgun inside a building is very likely to cause damage and ricochets. A hundred+ small lead balls bouncing around the kitchen, bathroom or whatever room is never a good idea. Shooting should be the very last resort.

Scenario: wife at home with kids; me not. What does one load in a 410 shotgun to kill a snake in the house?

The smallest shot size available. However, discharging any FA and especially a shotgun inside a building is very likely to cause damage and ricochets. A hundred+ small lead balls bouncing around the kitchen, bathroom or whatever room is never a good idea. Shooting should be the very last resort.

Agree, most definitely not any regular shot. I hope someone might know of a disintegrating shot type. Maybe corn, or maize, or something similar?

Rice or sago?

It would make for some interesting tests.

In a stash of 12G reloading stuff I was given from the estate of an elderly gent I found shells that had been loaded with very fine plastic beads. They were about the same size as the stuff you find in silica gel packets and initially that's what I thought they were. Suspect that they were intended for this purpose (i.e. dispatching vermin/snakes in an confined space) exactly as they had a very light powder charge and a 32g wad full to the brim with the beads. His other conventional bird and buck loads were all on the high end of stout by comparison so i don't think it was a mistake.

Scenario: wife at home with kids; me not. What does one load in a 410 shotgun to kill a snake in the house?

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Phone me one evening, I will open one of my in town in garage rat 410 shells and video chat it to you.
This is what I was telling you about when I said the 410 is such fun to mad scientist with.
Whole mielies make potent high velocity 20 ft range loads, literally blow a rat away and as long as you wear goggles, rebounds are of no concern, although most powderize on walls, wood.
Crushed mielies have same effect but lose oomp very fast.
Tell you something for nothing, even waxed paper and toilet paper mix, crushed tamped into a shell shot out a 410 held at a snakes head, 2 - 3 ft will absolutely smash the snake. (never done it
NB, no hard wads, they can do more damage than the shot.

Take an old break neck pellet gun, roll a few ball of toilet and stuff them into the barrel. Flies at 6 to 10 inch's are obliterated. Its even better if you hold finger on loading side, and lightly tamp down barrel with a dowel.
Works better than those salt guns they advertise.

My grandpa used to tie rope into knots for shooting flies in the house. He had an old, small pellet rifle.

My grandpa used to tie rope into knots for shooting flies in the house. He had an old, small pellet rifle.

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We took butchers string and dropped glue(wood glue)every 5 mm onto string. Then you cut the string on the glue ( if you want dip that side in glue again).

You roll the string between fingers and but the loose end in first. We would sit half morning just making ammo like this to shoot flies in the house for school holidays. Got a few fail to clean up punishments for this game - and a few other mishaps where experimental ammo went through ceiling, broke a ornament and wot not.

From a US forum I got advice to try loading a shot shell with rice. It disintegrates on impact because it is brittle, but should pack enough punch to kill a snake.

Next question: how would one test a load ie: how does one simulate a snake's body?

Wors !