Slithering surprise: Man finds dozens of rattlesnakes underneath shed

GORMAN, Texas — A Texas man recently received an unpleasant surprise when he discovered more than 30 rattlesnakes underneath a shed on his property.

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Bobby Cowan, and friends Matt Stanley and Levi Kirkland, had gone Dec. 18 to do some work on Cowan's property  in Gorman when they noticed a small snake slither underneath a shed. Cowan wanted a better look at the snake, so he used a skid loader to lift up the shed in hopes of catching another glimpse of it.

What he found was shocking: More than three dozen snakes were slithering underneath the shed. And they weren't just any kind of snake -- they were rattlesnakes, which are venomous.

"We were definitely -- what's the right word -- freaked out, maybe," Cowan told the San Antonio Express-News. "Very, very surprised. As soon as we lifted up the building, we slammed it right back down because there were so many of them."

A few minutes later, the men summoned up the courage to lift the shed again so Stanley could take a video. Cowan posted the video to Facebook. As of Thursday, video had more than 3.2 million views.

In order to protect nearby livestock, Cowan said he and his friends relocated the snakes to another area of the land. The men used long sticks and trash can lids to pick them up.

Cowan said he counted 36 snakes, but that there could have been as many as 50. He added that before that incident, he had only seen a handful of snakes in his 18 years of owning the property.

Cox Media Group