Our Bull Snake Is Dead

“Leigh!” my neighbor growled over at me in his scratchy way. “I killed a rattlesnake.”

“We don’t have rattlesnakes here in our neighborhood,” I said and ran over to the killing field.

By this time, he had beheaded a still-squirming bull snake whose blood was pouring onto his driveway. The colubrid had been my hen protector for about five years—first in the front yard, then in the back, consuming mice in and around my chicken pen. The hungry gray ground squirrel seemed to have found another home, perhaps with the mice in the snake’s belly. 

The neighbor's midtwenties-aged son was smiling greatly. I couldn’t believe it. Here lay my heroine, writhing in post-beheading pain.

“Oh, it’s okay,” the growling doctor said. “It can't feel pain. Its head is off.”

Advice: Before you kill, be aware of who or what you are killing. Be judicious. A bull snake is not a viper, has a blunt snout, not a pointed viper nose, and uses Müllerian mimicry to feign his potency.

I’m devastated.