Wildlife Watching Wednesday: The Helpful Milk Snake

By: Tom Berg

Much to the dismay of people who don’t like snakes, there are dozens of species of snakes living in the United States today.  In fact, there are more than 50 different species of snakes here – and if you count subspecies, the number grows to more than 250!  Luckily, the vast majority of them are non-venomous and nearly all of them are considered beneficial.

One very beneficial (and completely harmless) species of snake is the milk snake, or milksnake.  It is also called chicken snake, highland adder, cow-sucker and milk sucker.  This relatively small snake has a bold color pattern: it is typically alternating bands of white, black and red – in that order.  Some individuals are red, black and yellow.  The color pattern on some milk snakes is made up of splotches rather than bands, too.

One explanation of how milk snakes got their name is that farmers found these snakes inside their barns, near their dairy cows.  An old wives’ tale said the snakes were there to suck milk from the cow’s udders!  That was completely false, of course, but the idea stuck.  In reality, the snakes were in the barn because of the mice and other rodents in the barn that the snakes wanted to eat.  They were actually helping the farmer!

Milk snakes love to eat mice, but they also eat voles, lizards, worms, slugs, beetles, roaches, frogs, toads, small birds and bird eggs.  They will even eat other snakes, including venomous snakes like copperheads if they find and catch small ones.  Milk snakes are impervious to the venom from pit vipers since their blood serum has venom-neutralizing properties.  Cool!

Speaking of venom, milk snakes can resemble the venomous coral snake, since coral snakes look similar with alternating bands of red, yellow and black.  A key difference is that the red bands on coral snakes touch the yellow bands, whereas on milk snakes the red color touches black.  An old saying describes it: “Red on yellow kills a fellow.  Red on black – venom lack.”

But don’t worry, milk snakes and coral snakes do not live in the same areas.  Coral snakes are mostly found in the extreme southeastern USA, like in Florida, South Carolina, southern Louisiana, southern Georgia, etc.  Milk snakes live farther north, throughout much of the Midwest and up into southern Canada.

Have you had a great outdoor experience? Join Global Outdoors and write a review to tell everyone about it! We’re building the home for trusted reviews of outdoor experiences, outfitters, and guides.