I picked up a black widow spider!

[MiniHunterHorseFan]

We have had over 35 black widows that we have killed at our farm. Today I was washing Captain's tail and I went to grab a handtowel hanging on the fence. I dried off my hands and walked over towards my horse and I happened to look down. On the towel that I was holding was a big black spider.

I dropped the towel and examined the spider. It was a black widow. Thank God it was already dead. Then our dalmation saw the towel on the ground and thought the spider was something to eat. She ran over to it and tried to eat it. I yelled at her and had to smack her on the side to get her to move. She didn't eat it. Ugh I hate black widows.

 

[StellaLenoir]

gross! we have black widows too. I see them sometimes, but not too much. I see scorpions more, and pigmy rattlers.

Glad no one was bit!

 

[KanoasDestiny]

I feel for you!!! I've actually been bitten by a black widow hatchling. I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life!!! We have them everywhere around here, and we have to spray quite often. I was out watering the yard one day, and I happened to walk into a web of hundreds of little hatchlings that were traveling from my tree to the fence. I freaked because I already HATE spiders. Didn't see any on me, so I thought I lucked out. All of a sudden, I felt this little pin prick on my ankle...looked down...and saw a baby spider running up a web that was attached to my ankle.

I started screaming, then ran lightning fast into the house to jump in the shower. At that point I could have sworn that I had them crawling all over me. While I was in the shower, my mom called the doctor's office and they said for me to come in ASAP. Luckily, because the black widow had just hatched and still had it's whitish coloring, the doctor said that I shouldnt have a problem. But she gave me an antibiotic, and a cream and told me to pay really close attention to the area. It took a few days, but the spot went away and I didn't have any bad reactions. I get creeped out just thinking about it though.

I'm glad that the spider you grabbed was already dead. Still creepy though.

 

[Alex]

eewww! I hate spiders!

 

[The Simple Life Farm]

We have lived in our house for 7 years, and this is the first year we have seen black widows. We have killed several here. Maybe it was the wet summer we had???? I also HATE, HATE spiders!!!!!!!!!

 

[MBhorses]

the black widows love to hide and breed under our horses water tanks.

 

[yankee_minis]

Another reason to live in Maine! No black widow spiders!

 

[Minimor]

<Shudder> I'm another that absolutely hates spiders. We don't have poisonous spiders here; there are some that will give a nasty bite--don't know what kind of spiders they are but the bite will swell up & turn bright red & itch & burn--but no black widows or anything that is actually poisonous like that. Once in awhile someone in the province makes the news by buying some grapes & finding a black widow in with the fruit.

 

[Katie12]

How do you guys deal with rattle snakes. They would do me in and I doubt I would ever go outside. I hear of alot of people say they loose a horse to a snake bite. I couldn't imagine. My cousin lived in Florida and had a rattle snake hanging over her washer and dryer in her garage. I would die.

 

[Minimor]

Rattlesnakes--we don't have them here, but when I was a small child we lived in western North Dakota, and my grandparents ranched in the badlands south of Watford City--plenty of rattlers there. Children learn to be snake-wise at a young age, or at least I did. Must have worked, I never had any close encounters!

My grandmother would do a lot of canning--and all the canned fruit & vegetables was stored in the root cellar. One day when she went to the cellar to get a jar of something she discovered that the rattlesnakes had moved into her root cellar. Snakes everywhere--on the floor, on the shelves, hanging from the support beams. Eeewwww. She closed the door & wrote off everything stored in that cellar! I've wondered a few times if all that stuff is still there in that cellar and if the snakes have since left, or if they are still there too.

The only good thing about snakes....some of them eat spiders!!

 

[Sonya]

YUCK! We have very few here in Michigan...Yuck...I hate spiders!