Garden Creepy Crawlies

One of my favorite things about gardening is that it forces us to get out to the backyard at least once or twice a day. Oftentimes we get to see things we never would have otherwise noticed. We've probably seen a half dozen black racer snakes, and yesterday stumbled upon this beautiful corn snake.



We've decided to hold on for it for a little while. Neither Taylor nor I are particularly keen on having a pet snake, especially a wild-caught one, but we think it will be interesting to watch for a little while, and to feed. It's very active, not calm like most snakes I've handled, but it isn't terribly aggressive. We'll probably keep it for a week or two, and then return it to it's natural home.

On a side note, we are somewhat concerned with the snakes around here getting into our rabbit pens. There are not any snakes large enough to harm the adults (save for invasive Burmese pythons, but I'm not sure we need to worry about that in our particular locale) but a corn snake could probably go after a young rabbit kit. Even if it couldn't swallow it, it surely could strangle them. Our cage is mostly animal-proof, but a snake could slip in through the chicken wire fairly easily. I wonder if an adult rabbit would prevent a snake from getting to the young?