Rat and King snakes [kings, especially, hence their name] will cheerfully chow down on the venomous snakes.
Another very good reason to leave them be.
The guy up the hill dropped off one rat and two garters a couple weeks ago.
It’s not much but it’s a start.
[odds are the big roof rats will eat the smallish snakes, instead]
:(
Hubby has killed one snake since we moved here 7 years ago. A rattlesnake of all things. He was in the yard working one spring. I had the windows open (good thing too!) and heard him shouting ‘bring the shotgun! bring the shotgun!’. So I did. When I got outside I noticed he was STANDING about 6” back from the head of a rattlesnake who was in enough of a depression in the ground hubby couldn’t have just stomped him. Hubby had been picking up limbs under a tree and noticed one of the limbs he’d just stood on moved and rattled...aie! Good thing I’d made him wear his steel toed work boots that day!
Hubby had a bad day. Snake had a worse day. IMHO we live in the country and rattlesnakes and cottonmouths have zillions of acres of untended woods right across the road. They should stay there! Any trespass on my property is a risky thing.