cat kills snake kills cat

[youcantry]

A bit over a year ago I was near Tamworth at my dad's old miner's shack. We slept in the garage-converted-to-a-storeroom-with-a-bed-in-it. After a few days there was this almighty smell and we realised it couldn't just be our dirty laundry.

I investigated under the bed to find one decomposing and flyblown feral cat carcass. Yeach. Dragged it out and sprayed the floor with insect killer like you wouldn't believe. Right. Sleeping on the loungeroom floor the next night.

But what on Earth was a dead cat doing in the storeroom? My dad was up there that weekend too and he arrived a few hours earlier. He opened up that room to air it out for us.

To cut the long story short - on the first day we found a dead eastern brown snake out the back of the property - clearly killed by something and i thought it might be a fox at the time. There were also the remains of a number of dead birds out back, so something was snacking on the local avian life.

It all made sense eventually - cat bites snake, snake bites cat, cat does the bolt to the front verandah where it probably slept on an old couch and had ample water in the half-drum lying in the front yard. Finds the open door, retreats to the darkest back corner and dies.

Anyway, I threw it in a few plastic bags and in the bin. It was large, but nothing you'd write home about (although I'm writing about it now) and was all colours - black, white and ginger. I thought about grabbing a photo, but the thought of opening those bags and getting another whiff was enough to put me right off that idea.

Thanks to that feral we didn't have an Eastern brown in the yard along with a bunch of kids...

[molloch]

One of the first effects of tiger or brown snake venom is pupil dilation, making the animal photophobic. They always head for the darkest spot they can find.

It's actually VERY common for cats to kill even large snakes but suprisingly they don't usually get a strike and when they do it doesn't usually kill them.

[Deleted]

Animals often recover from snake bite with little or no assistance, I had a dog some years back that I found collapsed in the back paddock. Took him to the vet and put him on an IV next morning he was 100% and ready to go back to work. I found the chewed up snake later and realised what had happened. I was bitten myself years ago and the wife rang the doctor who said he had no antivinene so suggested we wait for supplies or send for an ambulance if I collapsed. Long story short by the time supplies arrived I was doing OK so Doc decided to wait and see if I kept improving because the cure can be as bad as the bite. I recovered after about three days even without being given an antivenin.

Those three days I felt pretty crook but for the next 2-3 years I was bullet proof could not catch a cold, flu or anything, snakebite apparently can really boost your immune system. I felt so good during that time I thought about marketing shots of snake venom as a preventative for all kinds of disease.

[youcantry]

hehehehe... was it an Eastern brown? They'd have to rank as the most dangerous (not the most venomous) snake in the world given their aggression, abundance and venom.

I've heard that numbers in northern NSW are now at about 100 times what they were prior to European settlement, due in large part to farmers killing red-bellied black snakes on sight (they predate on Eastern browns) and the cane toad moving south (red-bellied blacks prey on cane toads too - except they die in the attempt). Red-bellied blacks also tend to prefer water courses, whilst Eastern browns are quite adaptable to all sorts of environments.

Although most snake handlers will say that snakes will always prefer to retreat rather than attack, I've heard some say that the Eastern brown is one snake which prefers to get a strike in before retreating.

[molloch]

Basically the venoms have slightly different effects, in Dennis's neck of the woods likely to be either copperhead or red-bellied black if he survived it without long term effects. No know deaths in humans from red-bellied blacks but will make you sick for 3 or 4 days with various CNS signs and clotting problems. Copperheads can cause acute abdominal pain and CNS signs but humans generally recover.

Dogs are in general very weak and won't usually recover without antivenene, cats will recover about half the time by themselves, this may be that they are quick enough to escape with only little venomation rather than being more resistent to venom.

[Wally1]

In Cent Vic One of my nephews had a dam built near the house. This brought on an increase of frogs which precipitated an increase in tiger snakes.
I know that he was contemplating getting a breeding stock of red bellied blacks to subdue the tigers.
Once near Ballarat I found a big red bellied black across the track asleep, it wasnt moving anyhow. I had to get a stick and prod it to get it to move off the track.
Another time I saw a huge king brown (mulga) on the side of the road near Parachilna, Flinders Ranges. I stopped to show it to my wife and it galloped across the road and struck at the tyre.
Want to hear any more snake stories, I've got heaps of them.
Wally

[Deleted]

Positively identifying the snake was part of the problem because it was dusk, almost dark, and I was walking down the drive to close the gate. The snake was enjoying the warmth of the gravel and in the gloom I didn't see him but as soon as I felt his body under my boot and the whack on the leg I knew what had happened. We had seen a few copperheads and a couple of little browns around so it could have been anything. Within a fortnight of it happening to me there was a report in the paper that the same thing happened to a bloke up on the Murray and he reckons it was a brown that got him.