Scout1 -

I've caught and examined 498 prairie rattlesnakes from this country (and 4118 total snakes of all species) over the past few years. These rattlesnakes have a chameleon-like ability to loosely match their background colors. That is, they take on the hue of the substrate or the vegetation (very loosely). There are various shades of brown, greenish, or straw-colored. I've never seen one that was "odd" colored. On the other hand, I have caught a single very malanistic terrestrial garter snake. All others, of all species, have been "normal".

Jack Whitman

In my family's zoo we have a snake pit. It is about 24 feet in diameter. Snakes in it included rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, blacksnakes, watersnakes, copperheads and milksnakes. We would feed them white mice. If we put 1 brown mouse in with 25 white mice the brown mouse was always the first one eaten. When baling hay we would catch a bunch of meadow voles and dump them in with the snakes (all mice and voles were put in alive). When white mice were dumped in the snakes took their time going after them. When meadow voles were put in almost every snake immediately went after them.
By the way every time a rattlesnake or copperhead eats it sheds it's skin. Every time a rattlesnake sheds it's skin it gets a new rattle. So the rattles are not an indication of how old the snake is, but an indication of how often it has fed recently. Rattles often pull off between 2 rocks or in the crotch of a sticks. Rattlesnakes and copperheads do not feed often, here in NJ they may eat as few as 4 voles or chipmunk sized animals a summer.