My first job after finishing college was managing a cow calf operation in Central Texas. The ranch had 10 or 11 semi-feral cats which would do the same thing. It was like watching ballet seeing the way those felines would gang up upon, then taunt and distract the snake until one could get a kill shot.
The only time I ever saw cats earn their keep.
Now I know how I can justify the house cats to my husband. See, honey, at least we don't have snakes in the kitchen......
I will have to work on that.
One of the most entertaining cats we had when I was a kid was a BIG orange tom who lived for killing snakes. My brothers and I sat watching him for over an hour one morning watching him torture a 6 ft rattlesnake. The only reason we noticed was that we saw him jump straight up out of the corral. We then perched up on the rails and cheered him on until Mom (who hated snakes!) came out to see what we were making so much noise about. When she saw that snake, she ran back in and got Dad's .410 and blew the snake away, to our and the cat's intense disappointment. Before that, she also did not have much use for cats, but that old tom got plenty of treats after that.