I'm okay with snakes, don't love 'em, but I can handle it. When my son was about 6 we went to one of the first earth day exhibits and a docent was showing off a snake -- that wanted to investigate my purse. My son was a little upset that I took it out and let it wrap around my arm. He wanted to know why I wasn't scared like the other moms were, after all, I was too scared to go into Butterfly World at a local amusement park nd snakes were much scarier.

Not to me, give me a snake any day rather than a moth or butterfly.

I wore gloves lol. I will wear the gloves until it is all cured ....

Cool, I just got educated. We played with as kids, but I never new how to preserve them! Thanks for sharing!...

Gosh, wish I had known about the preserving method earlier. I have one shed skin (found it in our horse feed bin) and two copper head skins. I found the copper heads dead, one in the driveway of a previous house and one out on the road. So ...... I skinned them. I have all of them displayed in a glass topped coffee table along with some empty turtle shells that I found. Oh and by the way ....... I HATE snakes .... really, really HATE snakes!!!!!

Can't wait to see this! I didn't know you could cure them.

snakes are super fascinating. my son has had his ball python since he was 12. she's blind now, and cranky, but as they say, you can't put a good snake down! seriously, their respiration is so slow the medication does not work to euthanize them. at 27 yrs old we're just hoping she wakes up dead one morning. she continues to eat and drink, but does not make merry, which is just fine with a predatory animal. cleo has been to scores of class rooms and book readings and has always behaved herself (except for the time she crawled down the back of my dress. that's why you don't let go of the tail.) she was a very mellow and sweet pet for many years.

Okay you gave me a great laugh when I realised my mistake. I thought a shed had been made with snake skins.

hahahah now that was funny. A snake sheds it's skin and it's call a shed. lol

Here he is all cured and hung out to dry. He smells of alcohol.

It's a beautiful skin, it looks like glass and nobody had to die to get it lol. It's about six feet long.

what species is this? wouldn't it be awsome if the sheds retained some color? maybe just a whisper of color to add mystery to the translucent delicacy of the shed.

oh, btw, wish i had known,too, over the years, how to cure sheds. i saved them till they desentegrated. always found them strangely fascinating.

I have no idea about what species he is. I didn't see who shed it lol. I am sure I will be able to tint the shed if I want to.

BTW, my shed was attacked by some little birds, so I had to pick him in and hang him in the garage lol.

Yuk
I hopoe you were able to kill them. Baby rattlesnakes are very deadly.

While living in Louisiana for seven years, I (8 mos pregnant) picked up a snoozing snake(he had settled in a pile of fall leaves left overnight), reached into an azalea bush and heard a rattle of yes a tiny rattlesnake, watched as my neighbor killed an 8 ft cottonmouth moccasin in my backyard and gasped when the movers brought a bookcase out of the attic with a coiled skeleton on the shelf. When we lived in California, every year they harvested the walnuts in the grove behind our home. They did it by bringing in a machine that grabbed the tree and "shook" it. When the nuts fell, the snakes bolted. And of course, the mice did too. As much as I understand the important role they play in nature, I'm still not a fan.