Bull Snake Diet

The bull snake is one of several subspecies of the gopher snake and is a reptile that can grow to as long as 6 feet in the largest specimens. The bull snake is a constrictor and a carnivore, killing its animal victims by wrapping around them. Bull snakes do most of their hunting for food during the day. This snake is one of the most frequently encountered large snakes in North America’s grasslands, farms and open forests.

Diet

The diet of the bull snake consists of small rodents such as mice and ground squirrels. Pocket gophers are a staple of the bull snake’s diet in many parts of its geographic range. Other creatures that a bull snake will eat include rabbits and other small mammals as well as birds and their eggs. Lizards and large bugs are also on the menu of a bull snake.

Procuring a Meal

When a bull snake encounters a potential meal it will grab it with its jaws and then wrap its coils around it. The bull snake’s size and strength are typically too much for the types of animals it eats and the snake soon constricts and suffocates its victim. The bull snake’s jaws, according to the Enchanted Learning website, then stretch, with the help of special ligaments, to open wide enough to swallow the animal head first. The bull snake’s digestive system features powerful acids that digest the animal The bull snake may go weeks without eating after successfully capturing and consuming a large meal.

Habits and Benefits

The “National Audubon Society Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians” states that a bull snake has the ability to rapidly vibrate its tail, a movement that creates a sound much like a rattlesnake’s warning. The bull snake will also flatten its head during this display. This can result in people killing the snake out of fear that it is a rattlesnake. However, the bull snake’s diet is very beneficial to humans, as it consumes a high number of vermin such as rats, mice and other rodents. People should refrain from killing any bull snakes that they meet and allow the snake to go on its way.

Considerations

Bull snakes will also eat other snakes and their young when the opportunity presents itself. One of the reptile’s favorite foods is duck eggs, which the snake will find in nests near lakes and rivers. The bull snake does have predators, including hawks, eagles, owls and mammals such as the kit fox.

Range

The range of the bull snake includes many of the states in the western portion of the United States. Bull snakes live in the Midwest and Great Plains in Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Kansas, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas. The Far West is also home to the bull snake, with the species inhabiting California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

References

• Snake Estate: Bull Snake
• Enchanted Learning: Bull Snake
• University of Nebraska Lincoln: Bullsnake
• "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians"; John L. Behler; 2008