I find a good amount of snakes in my compost piles too--everything from little brown earth snakes to bigger 2-6 ft. snakes. I try to remind myself they are there for the purpose of keeping pests down. The only time I really have had the long term heebie jeebies was last fall--I was mulching the garden bed with old, moldy hay from an old bale. I had been carrying the flakes around and finally put them in a wheelbarrow. when I lifted the last bit of hay, there was a 4-5 foot long snake in there. AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!
I had been carrying that snake around in my arms, and didn't even know it. i'm still recovering
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A friend of mine had graciously agreed to till my plot with his tiller. i forgot to mention I had put some fake snakes in the plot to "scare the rodents" away. I have never seen a good Baptist boy dance so well in my life as when that fake snake was tilled up into the air.