as close as I'd ever want to get

went down to the county fair and saw a rattlesnake handler do his demonstration.....IT WAS COOL! but a little frightening at the same time.

these were Western Diamondback rattlers from Texas. He had one small male who was incredibly irritable - he was popping balloons with his lightening fast fangs. The guy did not handle this snake at all - used the hooks only.

he had a good size male and female that he handled with hooks and demonstrating the 'Tubing' procedure.

He had a very large male who tolerated the handling and was clearly very mellow - hardly rattled his tail at all, but was sampling the air and very curious at the same time. The handler wore plastic gloves (like surgical gloves) to handle the snake - said that the oils on his hands irritate the animals.

the snakes were sooooo interesting! wide triangular heads, very active rattles of all sizes. They definitely had different rattling patterns - there was this slow deliberate sounding rattle, and a really high frequency rattle. you could tell what was on the snake's mind by the sound it seemed!

The whole thing was done inside a plexiglass 'fence' type thing that was about 4 feet tall. He often lifted the snakes high up so people could see them better. I was about 3 feet away from the whole thing.

the best part was when he moved the barrels around...he had about 6 snakes in these two plastic barrels...when they got moved all the snakes would start rattling like crazy! It sounded so fake but I looked in one of the barrels and sure enough they were shaking their tails and making all the noise themselves!

anyway, that's as close as I ever want to come. beautiful animals but that guy is nuts for taking them in his hands IMO :rolleyes:

Wow, sounds like some show there; was it more educational, or just for thrilling the crowd? That must have been some sight to see.

it was educational for the most part
it's a 4-H fair, so all the animal demonstrations are educational and fairly conservation-minded.

Ohh ok. :) sounds kinda funny though; most kids around here have horses, pigs, goats etc. for 4-H projects.. imagine some kid going with a rattler! His farming parents would be shocked!

My daughter took first place for "Pocket Pets" in the county 4-H here for her Ball Python presentation. It really stood out from the normal rabbits, guniea piges, etc....

We are so proud of her!!!!!!!

Neil