Only in Texas would rounding up 120 tons of western diamondback rattlesnakes sound fun. Photographer Geoffrey Badner heads to Sweetwater for the beheadings.
In 1958, Sweetwater, Texas, area farmers and ranchers decided to do something about the abundant number of rattlers plaguing their livestock. Over the last 40-plus years, this annual purge has turned into the largest of its kind of with over 120 tons of western diamondback rattlesnakes “rounded up.”
People drive from all over the country and fly from around the world to see thousands of snakes captured, measured, weighed, beheaded, and skinned in the week-long event. This essay documents the 2003 Round Up.
Cecil Villa, Sweetwater Jaycee and head snake chopper.The snakes are first rounded up in the area desert.Garden sprayers filled with gasoline are used to flush them out and into boxes.Not a Rattler, but a Coachwhip snake.During a lunch break the handlers give a snake handling demonstration.Field guide giving a demo.The head snake handler showing a Rattler’s fangs.The main show floor at the fairgrounds where the snakes are taken after capture in the desert.The snakes are moved around in large yellow garbage cans.An adult Western Diamondback.Venom is "milked" from the snakes to make anti-venom.Children look through plexi-glass windows at the hundereds of snakes held in the main "pit" for processing.The guides and handelers adorn their vests with pins and snake charms.After being weighed and measured, the snakes are then beheaded with a swift chop.The heads are discarded, but the bodies are skinned and gutted.The "Processing Pit" where the skin and meat are separated for selling and cooking.Chinese doctors drive all the way from Dallas to purchase fresh snake gall bladders. This man is responsible for saving them.The still beating heart of a freshly killed Rattler.The skins are stretched, rolled up and sold.$5.00 a foot.
