Snakes and Coconuts - How it climbs, and more on snakes

[Guest guest]

Those I saw on coconut trees are small ones, not poisonous (thats according to

my father, and I havent heard anyone died from bite by these snakes), and

colored green with shades of faint yellow green at the belly part.

I have fear of snakes too. Though I faced this fear when I was a child - I

killed 1 small snake and 1 medium-size (about 1.5 meter) snake that got near our

house attempting to eat newly-laid chicken eggs, but I still have the fear. In

the coconut farms where we source our coconuts for our VCO factory, philippine

cobras are present. This is one reason why some coconut farmers are hesitant to

plant nitrogen-fixing crops in their farms, as required in organic farming to

maintain sufficient nitrogen supply in the soil, because the cobras love to stay

under the thick vegetation. These cobras are, to my knowledge, the third most

venomous snake in the whole world. But they are scared of people too, and would

normally run away from a human encounter, unless cornered or hurt. When part of

our coconut farm was cleared for the building of the factory, a family of cobra

was found. Two were killed by the workers, the rest were able to move on with

their lives. Until now, everytime we

remove a month-old stockpile of coconut husks, almost all the time we find a

cobra trapped in the remaining small heap of coconut husk. At some time it

crossed my mind to sell philippine cobras, in addition to selling VCO. But I

recoiled from the thought that it would be a dangerous business. I have heard of

incidents of cobra bite, very rare, but none who died from cobra bite in the

community. A few folks have learned the skill of catching the cobra by hand,

but not when the cobra is facing .

Tony

Bonnie Cole <bonnieview@...> wrote:

Tony:

Snakes are one of the most feared reptile. Were these BIG ones and are they

poisonous? I think it would be scarey living in a Country with poisonous snakes.

I rarely see them here in Canada, thankfully.

Bonnie

Re: Snakes and Coconuts - How it climbs

Do you know how a snake climbs up a coconut tree? I had eversince thought that

they do it by spiraling up around the tree. I already saw a snake at the top of

a coconut tree, and another one moved from one coconut tree to the other thru

the overlapping leaves, but not one climbing up. Until 3 weeks ago when I saw

one in an organic coconut farm. It simply climbed the tree like it would crawl

on the ground. It just crawled up on one side of the trunk, seems effortless and

fast. Unfortunately I was not faster enough to take a picture of it.

Why do snakes climb up coconut trees? I think not to get VCO, and sell at

premium price . There are insects up there. If unprotected, rats climb up

coconut trees too and wreak havoc on the young coconut fruits. It is good they

catch the rats, unintended feature of the organic farm system. I guess it is

easier for them to catch rats up there. I wish they just catch rats on the

ground. And Steve's diligent Cocovida guys will be more safe.

Tony

nigelatterbury <nigelatterbury@...> wrote:

Greetings all

I was just reading this hilarious post by steve at cocovida on his

blog..

http://cocovida-coconutoil.blogspot.com/

This guy deserves an award for the way he writes!

They also make great Coconut Oil as well

Dr N Atterbury

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