bwaaah piffffle Billy...
Call that a snake??.. here's some good snakes we have running around here
http://www.reptilegardens.com/reptile/topten.html
Closer to home, many people think the Cottonmouth (Agkistrodon piscivorus) and the Copperhead (Agkistrodon sp.) are very deadly. They are not, quite the opposite in fact. The maximum amount of venom a Cottonmouth can deliver is just barely enough to kill a single person. The Copperhead is even less deadly, even untreated, a Copperhead bite causes death in considerably less than 1% of the bites. Keep in mind that these two snakes rarely deliver anything close to their maximum dosage.
We let the kids keep those cottonmouth things for pets ;-))
Btw.. a spade fixes all things snake like if they start eating the pets!