Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup 2007-Some Photos are Very Graphic Photo Gallery by Paul Kalich at pbase.com

Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup 2007-Some Photos are Very Graphic

This is the 49th Annivesary of the Worlds Largest Rattlesnake Roundup held in Sweetwater Texas every March. Over 14,000 lbs of rattlesnakes are rounded up from the area around the town in west Texas and the event attracts over 200,000 people from all over the world. If you are interested in rattlesnake products there are some links shown in some of the pictures and you can also contact the roundup itself for information. I AM JUST A PHOTO DUDE AND NOT A SELLER OF RATTLESNAKE PRODUCTS!

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Even though they have been beheaded the bodies still try to fight each other	Splitting the rattlesnake up it's belly from the head area to the tail	Finished cutting up the length of the belly	Removing some of the internal organs into a bucket under the work counter	Seperating the skin from the meat and the organs from inside the meat cavity
Pulling the meat and organs away from the skin	Some of the Rattlesnakes intestines and arteries are visible	Discarding the organs from the snake	Working a couple snake bodies at once.	Kids looking at beating snake heart set out
The lighter translucent looking tissue is the meat of the snake	This head was opening and closing it's mouth and looking around and flicking it's tongue	Rattlesnake head closing it's mouth	Bucket of Rattlesnake Heads-probably one of the most dangerious things you can deal with	Colloseum north of Sweetwater where the RattleSnake Roundup is Held
Snake Pit and Measuring Pit	In the Snake Pit	Fairly Early Friday Morning Before the Snake Pit Really Fills Up	Snakes Vary in sizes from a couple feet up to 6ft plus	Snakes Being dumped in after being measured and weighed
Getting the new batch of snakes settled down	Texas Diamond Back Rattlesnakes	Picking out snakes to go to the milking area	GP3R0505.jpg	Measuring the length of each Rattlesnake brought in
Sexing each Snake	Weighing the snake	GP3R0513.jpg	In the Milking Pit showing these kids a Rattlesnake Close Up	This gentleman milks the snakes brought into him for their venom
Letting people touch the rattle end of a Rattlesnake while carefully holding the head	Showing a vial of venom after coming out of the centrafuge.	Closer showing the cellular material that the centrafuge seperates out	Waiting to be milked	Placed a snake on the table to grab and milk
Oh it's just ANOTHER RATTLESNAKE!	Notice the snake has not extended his fangs	GP3R0534.jpg	Talking about Rattlesnakes	GP3R0541.jpg
Texas Girls and Rattlesnakes!	Now Which is Prettier?	IS THAT REALLY A RATTLESNAKE RIGHT NEXT TO ME?	Getting ready to pin down the rattlesnake to pick up and milk it's venom	Pinning the snake down with the proper tool
Milking the Rattler	Extracting the Venom	Getting another snake ready to milk	Milking another Rattler	Another Snake Milker
Milking Venom out of this Rattlesnake	GP3R0579.jpg	Old and Young Getting Portraits Made with Live Rattlesnakes	Rattlesnake Skins, Rattlesnake Heads and other products for sale	Notice all Rattlesnake Skins are not quite the same color or patterns
Taxidermied and Freeze dried Rattlesnakes	Grade Schoolers Going to the Roundup	Live Snake Handling Demonstration about 10 miles from the Roundup	Rattlesnake in it's natural Habitat	Being Stared Down by a Rattlesnake
Three Jaycees members working the two snakes	Notice the clear Diamond Back pattern on this Rattlesnake	Informing the audience about some of the habits of the Diamond Back Rattlesnake	Showing the Fangs of a Rattlesnake	No this Rattler is not Smiling
Sweetwater Jaycees	Demonstration of how to use a snake bite kit	If bitten you cut around the bite area and then apply this suction device to the wounded area	You then leave this suction device on the bite area and seak medical help	The Jaycees also found out that rattlesnake venom can be toxic even over a year later
The Jaycees made sure that the people stayed a safe distance away from the Rattlesnakes	The Rattlesnake Bus	Blending in to it's environment	Placing this snake back onto the rocks after it tried to move away	So to be striking Out, this snake actually traveled more than it's body length even though it failed to reach it prey
Striking Out, this snake actually traveled more than it's body length even though it failed to reach it prey	Striking the snake down	Back on the rock to get some sun	Taking the snake over for another photographer from the UK to get some closeup shots	GP3R0704.jpg
Who says photographers aren't crazy!	GP3R0723.jpg	That snake has only one thing on its mind and that is to bite me!	Outdoor Flea Market during the roundup	Misc Texana
Longhorn Chewing Tobacco	Colorful Cocks	Parakeets	A Winner Every Time!	Longhorn Skulls
Bounce House	More of the Flea Market Trading Area	Pony Ride	Pony Ride II	Roasted Corn
Texas National Guard	Recruiting Humvee	US Army Recruiting group	Read Aim Fire, Water Pistol Fights!	Looking for the Enemy
Found Em and Time to Soak Em!	Parking Control Texas Style	BBQ	Brooskshires Grocery	Talley board
No Loose Snakes as of that time!	The snake pit in the afternoon	GP3R0764.jpg	Showing a snake skin to a curious young man	Measuring and rolling each snake skin that was to be sold to a vendor
Measuring and rolling each snake skin	GP3R0769.jpg	Ready to be bagged and placed on ice	GP3R0767.jpg	The butchering table after the mornings first batch is done
The inside of the Coloseum	The inside of the Coloseum view 2	Posing for a Portrait	GP3R0782.jpg	Diamond Back Rattlesnake Skins
These skins are later tanned and turned into useful items	This snake was over 5 ft long before being killed	The Pit in the Afternoon	GP3R0792.jpg	Keeping the largest snakes from the day
Teamwork in Measuring, Sexing and Weighing each live Rattlesnake	GP3R0796.jpg	Sexing each Snake as it goes through the process	Weigh in	GP3R0808.jpg
This gentelman was answering questions from the visitors about Rattlesnakes	Do Not Do This At HOME!	GP3R0813.jpg	On Occasion other non-venimous snakes get caught and they were showing this boy one	Joked with the guy if he would do this with a Rattlensnake and he Said He Was Not Crazy
Snake Skin Skulls	Snake pit in the Afternoon	Snake pit in the Afternoon 2	Snake pit in the Afternoon 3	Snake pit in the Afternoon 4
Facinated by the Butfchering Process	Showing how even though the head was recently chopped off it still tries to strike	Another snake to be killed	a couple seconds later the head is chopped off	Another one
Machette does it's work	Chopping snakes heads off	Snakes to be killed	Right before the machette strikes	Showing them the tail end of the snake
It was mostly boys and men watching the machette do its thing	Thi gentleman decided to skin his own snake that he picked out	Being shown how to use the knife to properly butcher the snake	You don't want to cut through the skin and ruin it	It's not as easy as it looks, most guys at the skinning table have done it for over 10 years
Slowly working his way up the belly of the snake	Being careful not to cut through to the other side of the skin	GP3R0899.jpg	GP3R0901.jpg	GP3R0902.jpg
GP3R0904.jpg	GP3R0905.jpg	GP3R0906.jpg	GP3R0907.jpg	GP3R0908.jpg
Rattlesnake Meat	GP3R0920.jpg	GP3R0923.jpg	GP3R0925.jpg	GP3R0926.jpg
GP3R0927.jpg	GP3R0929.jpg	GP3R0930.jpg	GP3R0931.jpg	GP3R0932.jpg
GP3R0933.jpg	GP3R0934.jpg	GP3R0941.jpg	GP3R0943.jpg	Copenhagen Girl
US Marine Helping this young man do pullups	GP3R0946.jpg	Now who is the braver one?	Yeah snakes do what snakes have to do	Hunter Registration Rules and Regulations
End of Day One at the Roundup	Carnival next to the Roundup	GP3R0955.jpg	GP3R0956.jpg	GP3R0958.jpg
GP3R0962.jpg	GP3R0964.jpg	GP3R0966.jpg	GP3R0967.jpg	GP3R0970.jpg
GP3R0974.jpg	GP3R0976.jpg	GP3R0977.jpg

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Karen Moen		17-Aug-2010 23:05
Not one of man's better days, but a great day for the resident rats! Eventually, there will come a tipping point, where the breeding population will not be able to keep up with this "sport." It reminds me of the bullfights I witnessed in Spain. Your pictures are brutal yet honest. Well documented. Voted.

Jim in Louisiana gets bit		05-Jan-2010 16:28
Jim in Louisiana: You said that :No place on this earth for something that can kill a human!!! See you boys in March. IF you enter into a animals habitat and get bit, attacked whatever, its your own fault. If you go deep sea diving in the ocean, I guess we need to kill all the sharks, hell no that is there home, It is very sickening that people go to these things, I'm a avid fisherman, I don't kill for population control. Maybe they ought to have a Jim roundup in lousy ana. You may think that these snakes are evil, you may think they would hunt you down, they will not. Daniel is right, These are God's creatures he created them, each animal has a definate purpose. If anybody participates in these roundups and gets bit they rightly deserve to be bit, but if you cross over into a animals habitat, you need to understand that the hunter may become the hunted. Just like the bear sooner or later you will cross his path, you are in his backyard, If you snake killers are so tough, I like to see go a few rounds with a bear.

Paul Kalich PPA member		28-Jul-2009 17:03
OK Folks, there are a lot of MISTRUTHS being posted here and if they continue I will deleate all comments! First, this roundup has been going on for 50 YEARS now and they still roundup about the same number/lbs of snakes per year and they pretty much have been getting snakes from the SAME GEOGRAPHIC AREA. Second, since the snakes are being BOUGHT from the roundup people and those prices are based on size and weight when the roundup guys go into a DEN they DO NOT TAKE EVERY SNAKE OUT OF THE DEN, just the ADULT full grown snakes since the smaller snakes would not bring them any funds in. Not sure about the comment about the venom since it HAS TO BE PROCESSED before being made into an anti-venom and the vast majority of venom is TAKEN IN THE FIELD from all types of snakes and the conditions there are a lot worse than here. As to other animals being hurt, THERE ARE NO OTHER ANIMALS LIVING IN OR NEAR A RATTLESNAKE DEN since the snakes would kill and eat them! As to the sexing may harm the snakes reproductive organs, THE SNAKES ARE DEAD WITHIN AN HOUR OR SO OF BEING SEXED. They started sexing the snakes a few years back to try to get an idea for field researchers as to the ratio of male to females out in the field. As to the stress of the females giving premature birth of live snakes, I saw many many large cans of snakes being dumped into the pit and not one BABY SNAKE was to be seen, YOU CAN LOOK AS HARD AS YOU WANT AND YOU WON'T SEE ANY BABY snakes in that pit. Heck if the snakes are roundup early the storage cans are usually kept outside in the cold and the snakes go into a hybernation state. ALSO this has been occuring in Texas at least, rattlesnakes are becoming active ALL YEAR LONG and not going into their several month hybernation. THERE IS NO SACKING CONTEST AT THIS EVENT AND NEVER HAS BEEN! So, yes this event does bother some people and I can see their view toward the subject but there is no reason to TELL LIES about the event. THERE IS ALSO NO REASON TO BRING UP THINGS THAT HAVE NO RELEVANCE AT ALL!!!!! IE a lot of what Claudetta has to say is just gibberish that don't mean a hill of beans- Really the people here don't want ulcerations of the skin since that makes the skin unusable- the venom comment is pure BS- the sexing comment is pure BS- as are a lot of her comments (but I will leave them posted unedited just so people can see how stupid she is!). So keep it CIVIL or I will remove them! (I have removed a couple over the last 2 years because they were not CIVIL-ignorance I will leave up).

Claudetta		28-Jul-2009 02:02
What ugly things these roundups are. I can only hope that they are banned sooner rather than later. --Gravid females can miscarry when 'stored' for these 'events' or while being tortured to death in sacking contests or while being 'stomped' to death. If this happens while they are being 'stored' the female can miscarry from stress and fear in some cases this can cause her to prolapse her oviducts and if they stay outside the body they dry out and narcotize causing sepsis. She could also get ascending paralysis and this would shut down her organs one at a time as it worked up her body until it reached and stopped her heart. Both these would cause terrible pain and suffering and slowly kill the snake over many hours or even many days. --Injuries caused during capture would do this also. The snakes could become dehydrated when 'stored' if they had injuries to the mouth or jaw this could cause a disease called mouth rot. The mane is an apt description but this can also spread into the lungs and/or the stomach and untreated can cause slow and painful death that can take days or even weeks to kill the snake. --If these snakes are stored in damp conditions for a long time they could get blister disease. This is another nasty infection that causes the ventral scales to ulcerate, the ulcers then get infected and this travels into the body causing a long, slow, agonized death. This to can take days or weeks to kill depending on what state the snake was in to start with. --Many parasites that the snakes carry and are normally immune to can attack and slowly kill the snake, this would be brought on by stress and sheer terror. --At the 'event' they would end up being used in sacking contests where the big, brave men get prizes for cramming as many snakes as they can into a sack and smashing them up in the process. This would cause broken ribs, spines and damage to the organs. Lets not forget the wonderfully barbaric stomping contests where a poor terrified snake is stuffed into a sack and the person who takes the most kicks to kick the poor creature to death wins the prize. Is this a particularly nasty contest one that was dreamt up for the weaklings who are too scared to face this creature on more equal terms. --Then there is the sexing and the milking, sexing if not done properly can injure the snakes cloaca; I can only wonder how many snakes have had their jaws smashed up while being 'milked'. The venom is also no good for making antivenin as these snakes are not milked in sterile conditions. Nothing at a roundup has any scientific value and it is all done for cheap and nasty entertainment. --Then comes the 'whacking'. If you think this is a humane way to kill a snake then think again. The head can survive for up to an hour and be fully concious. This would mean that the bodiless snake would be in agony both physically and psychologically. Oh, and those brave people jeer and take the micky out of the poor animal while he struggles to escape his torturers. --They can survive this long as they have a low metabolism, but with no body the head fights for breath and gasps for air but his lungs are gone along with everything else. He still fights for the life that those goons took away. And do they get off on it. --Then there is the final indignity. The skin trade. The idiots buy their skins that have been made into 'boots, bags and belts and other stupid trophies. This also encourages these people to go out and buy more snake skin products that may have come from beautiful pythons that may well have been illegally skinned alive and left to die, it can take a skinned python up to three days to die from shock and dehydration. Every second of it in unbearable pain. --This is another reason to stop the roundups. --Why do thousands of animals have to be tortured to death just to satisfy a few sadistic and barbaric people who quite frankly should go and seek professional help.

Peter		27-Jul-2009 21:14
I am with Daniel and Susan on this one. This is nothing more than a sick, twisted blood-fest for the sick and evil. I have a better idea. lets still have the blood-fest but without the snakes. Put these people in the arena and tell them they are going to take part in a bare knuckle fighting contest against each other. I would pay good money to watch that. If humans want to inflict pain and suffering on each other that is fine. Humans have the right to give or with hold their consent but those animals they kill have not given their consent to be tormented to death. Here is something else to think about. They say they do this so people are not bitten by snakes but how many other animals are killed as collateral damage and how many people are bitten as a direct and indirect result of these blood-fests? This is just pure evil and I am ashamed to belong to the same species as the people who get off on spilling the blood of so many innocent creatures.

Daniel		20-Jul-2009 04:47
Wow, unbelievable! I'm with Susan. This isn't an 'event', it's a mob of hobos foaming at the mouth for blood. I don't even like snakes! They give me the creeps! But they are EQUALLY God's creatures and deserve NOTHING as SICK as what you people 'get off' on doing. This is pure, human evil. Get out of the trailer and learn something, Y'all.

tom		26-May-2009 05:21
For Jim in Louisiana: I guess your dumb arse mentality curses all of mankind to death, since a human can kill a human. Better rethink your philosophy. Control any population that is making the planet less habitable for the rest of it's inhabitants. But oh yeah, that would mean humans would have to use their brains and be smart enough to control it's own population without using guns and violence to do it. "Just drop the snakes off at their house". Only after some idiot goes around collecting obscene numbers of the snakes, thereby creating a dangerous situation. Sheesh Jim, don't try so hard to give Louisiana a good name or anything.

D		29-Jan-2009 09:19
It is strange to me that people would even wonder why these snakes bite humans. Do any of you realize that we are their predator? If you had someones giant greedy disgusting hands lunging toward you, would you not bite them?

Bill E Bob		22-Jan-2009 02:27
Susan, you must be a Yankee.

Jim in Louisiana		12-Jan-2009 23:12
Keep up the good work boys!! If people have a problem with this roundup and don't like the snakes killed, just drop them off at thier house so they can take care of the little darlings. No place on this earth for something that can kill a human!!! See you boys in March.

Susan		30-Dec-2008 13:26
Absolutely disgusting! You people make me sick.You take some kind of pride in killing all these snakes who were just going about there business trying to survive like everything else. Even if the population needs to be controlled, I fail to see why you have to catch so many, I suspect greed for more $'s plays a large part. Barbaric, just nauseating.

jake		28-Nov-2008 14:04
miss snakecharmer pics missing

Guest		12-Mar-2007 14:24
Awesome work as always, Paul. Especially the ones showing the full snake pits. This is really great stuff.

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