Snakes in my hay!

I think it's a snake as it looks rather fat, to my knowledge slow worms are quite skinny. I've found a squashed rodent in my hay before, it was too squashed to tell what it was but I had to throw the whole bale away because it smelt awful. Have also had lots of rubbish like crisp packets, and even an empty lip gloss tube once!
 
How scary OP!

Mines a bit freaky rather than gruesome. I once found a hospital tag for a newborn baby girl. About 50 years old I think it was.
 
Elsiecat said:
How scary OP!

Mines a bit freaky rather than gruesome. I once found a hospital tag for a newborn baby girl. About 50 years old I think it was.
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That is freaky. You could have probably traced back the person via the hospital tag. Unless the baby went into the combine!
 
Ahhh! I too would have screamed and run far. Have we decided what sort of snake it is?
Horrible about the half dog!
Worst I find are squished rats.
 
Orangehorse said:
Ahhh! I too would have screamed and run far. Have we decided what sort of snake it is?
Horrible about the half dog!
Worst I find are squished rats.
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I don't know. Jury is still out. Have googled slow worm and grass snake and both look similar. This chap in photo was the one that I pushed into the hay net and then pulled back out as thought it didn't feel right and then screamed and dropped it and then saw more in the hay, its quite scaly though. I had another look at it tonight when I got the horse in. If you were able to pull it out, which you cant as its perfectly mummified, complete with glass staring eyes, it would be the length of an un opened newspaper so, not huge, certainly not like the rattlers we see in the cowboy and indian films lol - its almost black in colour, but then its dried up. Two 'snakes' fell out, if they are snakes?. I am going to open the rest of the bale tomorrow with a pitch fork and use gloves. Just in case something else is lurking in there.
 
Gloi said:
That would have freaked me out even though I don't mind snakes. Worst I've had were baled rabbits though a friend had the misfortune of finding half a Jack Russell in a bale once, complete with collar :(
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That's horrible in every sense. Wonder where the other half ended up?
 
Thinking about it I've found weird stuff on the fields before.....a bag of leather straps, thought ooh someone's who used to have a horse has dug it out of storage and left it for us, how nice.......I then realised, to my horror it wasn't meant for horse wear!
 
jemima*askin said:
I had a bale that hissed when I moved it. It took me a couple of goes at moving it to realise that it wasn't a coincidence. A snake had taken up home in it.
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OMG OMG OMG OMG (running frantically screaming with hands in the air) .............:( that would be IT for me; the place would be up on the market and I'd emigrate to somewhere like Iceland where they don't have any snakes (????).
 
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Found a sausage in a bale of shavings once. Picked it up and just stood there thinking 'is this a sausage?' before my horse swooped in and ate it. Then just stood there thinking 'did my horse really just eat a sausage?'. Then remembered the time he pilfered my ham sandwich...Never forgave him for that ;0
 
Thanks. Now every day when I do my hay I'm going to be wondering if there are going to be mummified snakes in the slices!!!!!! ARGHHH
 
Illusion100 said:
Found a sausage in a bale of shavings once. Picked it up and just stood there thinking 'is this a sausage?' before my horse swooped in and ate it. Then just stood there thinking 'did my horse really just eat a sausage?'. Then remembered the time he pilfered my ham sandwich...Never forgave him for that ;0
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Your horse is in serious need of therapy!
 
Charlie77 said:
Smells of horse, that's an adder they give birth to live young, every thing else lays eggs!
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Slow worms have live young too. The mummified snake is odd, looks like a snake because of scales but would of thought the distinctive diamond pattern of adders or the yellow collar of grass snakes would still be evident.
I've only found dried out rodents in our hay fortunately.
 
Aww, I got all excited until I realised they were dead! I love snakes, and have seen one (huge!!) wild adder in my life, but never had any luck spotting grass snakes!
 
I have had a football in my haylage but better than that put hand in to grab some of large round bale, just unwrapped but still whole and felt something warm. On closer inspection was whole nest baby rats ! Alive but still hairless, I tried to relocate the whole nest but they disappeared overnight, expect Mr Fox had them. I probable scared mummy rat off! told haylage guy and he was gobsmacked, we never did work out how they got in there as no holes in haylage wrap and no obvious mould on haylage which there would have been if there was a hole.
 
Well that's unsettling. Never found any mummified animals in our hay. But living in Hampshire (where lots of snakes reside) we've had one horse bitten by an adder, poor thing swelled up like a balloon and was very sore for a few days. I've also seen quite a few grass snakes in our garden and an adder. We had one that lived by our pond and ate all our fish and frogs :(

I remember as a child seeing my first grass snake in our garden, I decided I wanted to catch it, so ran inside and grabbed a bucket and a broom, luckily (for the snake) when I returned it had dissapeared.
 
I've found a live slow worm in hay before, freaked me out at first but when I realised it wasn't a snake I became quite fascinated with it. OH has a few in his garden, sadly got one with the lawnmower. Here's a picture I took of one slow worm last year, you can see they are very snake like!

WARNING - SLOW WORM PICTURE FOLLOWS!!!







8754953116_7fa85b5ab6_b.jpg
 
I would have screamed. A lot and very loudly!

Tonight is haynet making day for the week. Fortunately I have the sectioned hay and notthe bbig round bales. Hoping I'm safe :p
 
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Pigeon _ if your ever in Kent I'll show you grass snakes, I'd like to know who gets to decide they are rare? Just not looking in the right places!!
 
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