Rattle Snakes and Goats

[Nanno]

That's a beautiful snake in the photo Herb. We have a lot of those bull snakes here too. My horse Easter onced stepped on one and it let out quite an explosive hiss! I was relieved to look back and see it wasn't a rattler (it was much too big!). Bull snakes shake their tails like a rattler but they have no maracas so they make the "rattle" noise with their breath instead. They're very convincing!

On the whole, it's probably ok for goats to ignore rattlers. Often if an animal is afraid of something they'll shy away and then go back for a closer look. We don't want that!