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My grandpa used to keep a fruit-jar full of rattles. He showed me how to "snap" the rattles off the body of the snake.
Do NOT try that or pick up a rattler you think is dead without first totally removing the rattler's head from the body.
I keep an old garden hoe in the back of my pickup for just such a purpose.
As noted above a "dead" rattler can still strike causing severe injury.

I second the western diamondback rattlesnake identification. Killed 4 of em already this year.
Get to the emergency room!