Oregon Bull Snakes

Habitat

• Bull snakes are native to the western United States, including British Columbia and Mexico, not just Oregon. They live in sandy areas and open oak and pine forests. These snakes will also live in prairies and agricultural fields. Nonvenomous, bull snakes can live in captivity. They are beneficial to farmers because they eat rats and mice that destroy crops. The snakes can live under the porch or barn, where they will find their prey.

Behavior

• Bull snakes eat small mammals like rats and prairie dogs, and they eat lizards, young snakes and large bugs. When threatened, they exhibit rattle snake behaviors. They will rattle their tails and hiss at predators, though they are not venomous. However, bull snakes typically flee when threatened by larger predators. These snakes also hibernate during cold winter months and awake when it is warmer in spring. After they emerge, the snakes will shed their old skin.

Appearance

• Bull snakes are commonly light tan or yellow with dark reddish to black splotches. The undersides or bellies are light tan in color. Its head is flat with a dark line across it, and its head and neck is the same width. Scales on this snake have keels or ridges that feel rougher than when compared to other snakes. They vary from almost 4 feet to 6.8 feet in length.

Reproduction

• Pituophis melanoleucus cantenifer mate during the warmer spring months. Females dig shallow and sandy nests, or they look for abandoned mammal nests to lay their eggs. Bull snakes lay up to 20 eggs in one clutch and they hatch in 64 to 80 days. The babies or neonates are a cream color, and they 12 to 18 inches in length at birth. The parents do not care for the young, and they are able to hunt and feed themselves at birth.