NATURAL HISTORY- Eastern Kingsnake

I had quite the fair share of herp run-ins growing up as a child on my parents' farm in Camden, SC.  On a recent trip home for Easter, we had another run in; but this time I was prepared to save lives.  Both of my parents are retired jockeys, but still train horses and other jockeys out of their barn.  Since most of the horses in the barn are pretty valuable and the liability of my parents while at their farm, anytime a snake is seen it becomes an issue (we see quite a few snakes because the farm is in the middle of undeveloped land/forest).  Easter Sunday I walk outside and see in the distance my parents standing around the dogs which are barking extremly loud.  Curiosity got the better of me so I jogged over to find them standing over a dark colored snake trying to hold the dogs off of it.  I obviously more excited to see it than my parents were because now I had some idea of what I was looking at.  My parents, thinking it could possibly be venemous, discuss which way would be the best way to kill it. I immedietly shot down the idea as I ran back into the house to grab my field guide from my bookbag in hopes of preventing an unnecessary death on either end.  Since it was still pretty early in the morning and cool out, the snake very docile and didn't seem too stressed out, which gave me enough time to get close enough to identify it.  After narrowing it down to the family Colubridae, I came to the conclusion that it was Lampropeltis getula, or the Eastern Kingsnake. The serpent was an adult and a solid 48 inches long.  I had had a shiny, glossy black appearance with un-keeled scales that gave it the "slimy" look most people mistake snakes for being.  The white chain like pattern down the length of the snake stood out as if it had been bleached.  The area it was found also gave me clues to identify it.  It was found no more than 10-15 meters from the hay shed, where there are about 22 tons of hay stored at any given week.  Its proximity to the hay shed and the number of rodents and other potential prey that live in the shed along with the prominant color patterns helped make quick work of identifying it.  I was able to get the snake into a bucket and safly take it deep into the woods where it would hopefully not find its way back to my parents.  Before leaving, I tried to give my parents a mini lesson on how to identify the venemous snakes in our area along with some common non-venemous snakes.  The hope is that they can correctly identify the next encounter and call the appropriate people should the snake be venemous.  So, snakes of Camden, SC, you're safe for now...