It was bigger than average size for a rat snake but I've seen bigger ones. This one was approaching 3 ft long.
I've had a love-hate relationship with rat snakes since I was a kid. My junior high science teacher kept one in a glass aquarium-type cage in his classroom, and we would take it out and handle it sometimes. It was very tame.
I've seen numerous different snakes on the ranch, the Texas rat snake being the most common (second is the copperhead). Rat snakes readily climb trees but copperheads stay on the ground. By nature rat snakes are not aggressive but will strike at you if bothered, but ther bite is harmless and likely won't break the skin - no fangs or teeth. Their defensive mechanisms are their ability to make a rattling sound similar to a rattlesnake, which can scare the dickens out of you
(as if you're not scared already), and they can emit a horrible smell.
As I said previously I usually leave them be. Last summer one lived in the barn several weeks. I welcomed it for the vermin it would catch, and there must have been enough because I saw it nearly every day for several weeks. I've also heard that rat snakes will kill copperheads.
It got to where if I didn't see it I looked for it. It wasn't afraid of me, but I never tried to bother it.
A few years ago I was passing by one of the several bluebird houses I have, and saw a rat snake's tail sticking out of the entry hole. I opened the front of the house and there, along with several still-alive baby birds, sat the snake. When I got the snake out of there it was apparent from the enlarged lumps in its body that it had swallowed two birds. I killed the snake and cut it open. Inside were the mother bird and one baby. Neither had been dead very long. My assumption is the snake entered the house, thereby blocking the exit, and ate the mother, or waited for her to come to the nest. Then the snake was just going to stay until it had eaten the rest. The babies were half-grown but too young to fly so the snake could take its time.
Over the years on the ranch I've had encounters with rat snakes, King snakes, racers, green snakes, bull snakes, water snakes, ribbon snakes, garter snakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, and a few others I couldn't identify. In genearal I try to live and let live. I suppose they're all beneficial but I kill the poisonous ones mainly because of the grandkids. I've had dogs bitten by poisonous snakes but never had one die from it yet.
As for armadillos I kill them all on sight if I can. They're an invasive non-native species here and as far as I know have no redeeming value.
Ken
__________even got my glasses out 
