Snakes. How to reduce?

[Duke]

I’m already seeing numerous snakes on my property.

Last summer - our first of ownership of this land - saw 10-15 copperhead/cottonmouth kills. Some of
Which were near my sidewalk.

Just today I had a fight to the death with a harmless but determined to strike me garter snake

Got an infant en route and other small Kids.

What can I do other than get a bird of prey?

[Joe in PNG]

From what I've heard, chickens might work.

Kingsnakes are another option, if you can find, catch, and release a few on your property.

[GuanoLoco]

Got any local populations of king snakes that you could gently re-locate onto the property?

I live quite near the Cahaba River in Birmingham, AL, on a little feeder creek. I’ve lived directly on the Cahaba twice before, within a few miles of my current location, and I can assure you that it has a healthy copperhead population.

In > 10 years I haven’t seen a single copperhead here. I have seen quite a few kingsnakes, an occasional garter snake (I find that they are generally irritable and bitey but harmless) and occasional tiny ringnecks. Kingsnakes are constrictors and will kill and eat copperheads.

My wife saw a hawk eating a snake a week or so ago - probably one of my treasured kingsnakes. :(

[HCM]

36526

[txdpd]

Chickens will attract snakes, scratch that, rodents are attracted to chicken feed and partially digested feed in scat. A couple outdoor cats will keep snakes away, but that comes with it’s own issues.

Reducing habitat and rodents will go a long way in keeping snakes away. Keep the grass short, get rid of low shade providing vegetation, get rid of brush piles, seal up the exterior walls, and get rid rodent food sources.

[GJM]

You need Roadrunners!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyZ2P-XVIMg

[jwperry]

The best anti-anything-in-my-yard are feral cats who know who feed them.

You have to be ambivalent with their lifecycle though, because you'll "consume" them.

[RevolverRob]

Concur with the suggestions of txdpd - reduce their habitat and food sources. Copperheads very much like dark, shady crevices, and leaf litter for living and for reproducing. Cotton mouths are also fond of similar environments. Get rid of the rats and you'll reduce your snake population considerably.

Side benefit of reducing snake habitats you reduce mosquito breeding habitats too.

I hate feral cats, for their propensity to destroy everything, but if you have a rat problem, they'll clear it out something quick. Downside, once they've used up the rat population, they will destroy every bird and lizard in the area.

[Coyotesfan97]

You need Roadrunners!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyZ2P-XVIMg

Meep! Meep! I love seeing Roadrunners and King Snakes on my property. We had a big King in a bush in my front yard. I know rattlers are around but I don’t seem them very often.

[GuanoLoco]

The local snake population here usually peaks right after the chipmunk population peaks - reduce the food supply and they will move along on their own accord. Do you have a water source? Tasty fish, frogs, etc.

Sometimes we see some mating activity in the spring - i have a king snake mating video from my backyard around somewhere.

[Duke]

Well we’re talking hundreds of acres of farmland In the Ozarks.

Neighbors farm Angus and goats. There are a few random Llama that no one claims.

To a large degree the field mice can’t be controlled. We have the standard pest control services.

I did shoot a rat in the taint with a sim gun a few months back....so there’s that

36531

[Tensaw]

Concur that chickens will only add to the snake problem. Guineas, maybe geese, can help. Keep grass mowed close and everything weedeated. Seeing a snake is bad enough when you have some notice; it really sucks when they surprise you. Eliminate mice/rats and any other vermin that snakes may use for a food source. Feral cats might help with this. Snakes seem to run in cycles here. When the river floods bad, it seems to push snakes inland.

[Malamute]

I’m already seeing numerous snakes on my property.

Last summer - our first of ownership of this land - saw 10-15 copperhead/cottonmouth kills. Some of
Which were near my sidewalk.

Just today I had a fight to the death with a harmless but determined to strike me garter snake

Got an infant en route and other small Kids.

What can I do other than get a bird of prey?

Can you shoot there? The birdshot loads available in most common pistol calibers work pretty well from 9mm on up. The pattern spreads quickly and gets thin enough to be spotty past about 8-10 feet.

A small gardening shovel can cut their heads off. They are pretty fragile, almost anything applied to their head works. Be aware that even though "dead". many snakes can still bite and strike, even with the head cut off it can be dangerous for an hour or more. Touching them, even picking them up from the tail can result in getting bit, even after being blasted with birdshot or whatever. I tend to stand on the head and cut it off with whatever knife I have, even a Randall in rocky ground, and dig a hole with said blade and bury the head on the spot so it cant be stepped on. If you have small children or animals, its probably best to put the head in a jar or something in the trash.

If firearms cant be used, a decent repeater air pistol or CO2 pistol would probably kill a snake with head shots. Museum Replicas or Kult Of Athena may also be able to provide useful and interesting implements to slay serpents with. I applaud all efforts to kill poisonous (venomous, whatever) snakes. I dislike them greatly.

(spelling is hard)

[RevolverRob]

in the Ozarks.

Ah.

Teach the kid how to ID snakes early on and avoid them.

That's how I learned. First copperhead I saw in the wild was hanging out under the back deck of my grand parents house in the Ozarks (northern Arkansas near the ARK/MO state line). I was probably six at the time.

What I would do - Pick the area around the house, fence it, clear cut it, till it, and plant good grass. This will give the kid a place to roam and also give you a delineated area to run pest control inside of. Thereby shrinking the domain to a manageable area.

Back outside the "snake free zone" - you need to find a chunk of the property that seems "snakey" and make it "super snakey" give those horny bastards a place to do eat, hunt, and fuck far away from you. And between you and them, a couple of three feral cats (just have 'em fixed). And turn them loose. And some goats (goats are good at keeping snake populations down, because they don't like them). I'd get you a male and a harem of females and castrate the male. Saves problems all the way around.

[GuanoLoco]

Well we’re talking hundreds of acres of farmland In the Ozarks.

Ummm yea, good luck with that.

[Lost River]

I’m already seeing numerous snakes on my property.

Last summer - our first of ownership of this land - saw 10-15 copperhead/cottonmouth kills. Some of
Which were near my sidewalk.

Just today I had a fight to the death with a harmless but determined to strike me garter snake

Got an infant en route and other small Kids.

What can I do other than get a bird of prey?



I can tell you that pigs/hogs will mess up snakes like nobody's business.

They are not the greatest pets in the world, but if you have a serious snake problem, hogs are a good solution, short of turning badgers loose!

Food for thought.

Besides, once they have cleaned up your snake problem, you have a source of bacon!

[Duke]

Can you shoot there? The birdshot loads available in most common pistol calibers work pretty well from 9mm on up. The pattern spreads quickly and gets thin enough top be spotty past about 8-10 feet.

A small gardening shovel can cut their heads off. They are pretty fragile, almost anything applied to their head works. Be aware that even though "dead". many snakes can still bite and strike, even with the head cut off it can be dangerous for an hour or more. Touching them, even picking them up from the tail can result in getting bit, even after being blasted with birdshot or whatever. I tend to stand on the head and cut it off with whatever knife I have, even a Randall in rocky ground, and dig a hole with said blade and bury the head on the spot so it cant be stepped on. If you have small children or animals, its probably best to put the head in a jar or something in the trash.

If firearms cant be used, a decent repeater air pistol or CO2 pistol would probably kill a snake with head shots. Museum Replicas or Kult Of Athena may also be able to provide useful and interesting implements to slay serpents with. I applaud all efforts to kill poisonous (venomous, whatever) snakes. I dislike them greatly.

Yes it’s a 360 degree hot range.

I’ve got a shovel on my atv as well as a mounted rifle.

No worries on how to kill them. Being on the side of a Rock Mountain with numerous water sources is likely a large contributor to the issue

[PNWTO]

Guinea Hens.

No. Seriously.

A squad size element of Guinea Fowl and you'll see a drastic decrease, same thing with ticks and predatory spiders.

They are also fantastic intruder alarms, day or night, and will get very vocal when something new is around. Getting some barn cats is also invaluable.

Most migrant worker crews around here will often attach a spare machete blade to a shovel handle, creating a ghetto naginata for clearing out a dug-in rattler.

[JR1572]

We have lots of snakes in our area. Me and the Savage Child walked up on a ribbon snake eyeing up some tadpoles in a puddle back behind our rear fence. I haven’t seen any venomous snakes by my house in person but pictures of them pop up often on our neighborhood Facebook page.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20190325/67240a8f7b7cd09ecbca7e5d0484bfa9.jpg

[littlejerry]

Goats. Pigmy or normal size.

They eat everything except the half dozen species of plants poisonous to them. They destroy snake habitats for fun. Not sure if they will them, but all my relatives with goats have very snake free property (unless they have chickens...) in N GA.

[txdpd]

The ozarks should be prime owl territory.

I don’t know if you can realistically attract owls to your property but Your state wildlife people might be able to help out.

[LOKNLOD]

Guinea Hens.
.

He’s right, they’re surprisingly effective.

On the other hand, once you’re over run with the most annoying flock of idiots this side of an AOC campaign rally, you’ll long for the sweet death of copperhead venom coursing through your veins.

They’re hella fun to plunk with the .22, too.

Duke, have you considered getting a plane? I hear they attract snakes.

[SeriousStudent]

I have to admit, when I saw the title "Snakes. How to reduce?" my first that was a wine sauce reduction, then adding adding a little flour and butter to make it into a nice roux.

But you have to stir all the time, and if you walk away from the stove for just a minute, the sauce will burn. :(

[Dan_S]

On guineas, yeah, uhm, no.

They are annoyingly loud, and nigh onto useless.

I’d rather have a smoke alarm that was constantly going off.

[fatdog]

Concur with the suggestions of txdpd ...Get rid of the rats and you'll reduce your snake population considerably.

Eliminate the food, biggest thing IMO.

There is actually trapping mechanism I found that works. 3"' or larger PVC pipe, approx 4' long. Place several of the rat glue traps in the bottom, take some time to cut them so they are pretty much flush, leave about 10" of each end of the pipe clear.

Placement is everything, put it along a fence line, at the base of the fence and parallel, if wire right flush with it, or directly under the lowest rail if a rail fence, obviously at ground level. I don't know why they enter, but they do and the glue traps capture them. I kill the copperheads, if I get a king snake or other non venomous type you can spray PAM in the tube it will release them from the glue traps. My local fish and game guy out here was one of the "critter getter" type services before he went to work for the state and turned me on to this trick. Got three copperheads with it over the years.

[GuanoLoco]

He’s right, they’re surprisingly effective.

On the other hand, once you’re over run with the most annoying flock of idiots this side of an AOC campaign rally, you’ll long for the sweet death of copperhead venom coursing through your veins.

They’re hella fun to plunk with the .22, too.

Duke, have you considered getting a plane? I hear they attract snakes.

Having had the experience firsthand in a big toe, I’d describe it more like the sweet death of your venal return system failing, leaving you in excruciating agony barely controllible with repeated doses straight morphine at first, then days and weeks of the same when there is any blood pressure to the affected area, and months to recover.

I’ll take the guinea hens, thanks.

[GuanoLoco]

Eliminate the food, biggest thing IMO.

There is actually trapping mechanism I found that works. 3"' or larger PVC pipe, approx 4' long. Place several of the rat glue traps in the bottom, take some time to cut them so they are pretty much flush, leave about 10" of each end of the pipe clear.

Placement is everything, put it along a fence line, at the base of the fence and parallel, if wire right flush with it, or directly under the lowest rail if a rail fence, obviously at ground level. I don't know why they enter, but they do and the glue traps capture them. I kill the copperheads, if I get a king snake or other non venomous type you can spray PAM in the tube it will release them from the glue traps. My local fish and game guy out here was one of the "critter getter" type services before he went to work for the state and turned me on to this trick. Got three copperheads with it over the years.

What else did you kill that you didn’t intend to?

[fatdog]

What else did you kill that you didn’t intend to?

Lizzards, bugs and a ton of field mice...why?

[Poconnor]

In my area I would get a few snake lovers to come trap them. In your situation I would think defense in depth. Fenced in no snake area around house(inner perimeter) A big area of cut grass outside that (outer perimeter) . That is what I currently have but it is for ticks not snakes.

[GuanoLoco]

Lizzards, bugs and a ton of field mice...why?

Glue traps are rather indiscriminate in what they catch and kill; some, including me, find them fairly distasteful.

[OnionsAndDragons]

Others have already covered my suggestions here.

In order I would go with:

A mess of kingsnakes

A half dozens goats

4-6 hogs

The kingsnakes require zero maintenance whatsoever and are really effective.

Goats will smash the hell out of snakes, and then go on to destroy a lot of snake fun zones. Also don’t need too much tending as they can eat pretty much anything.

Hogs require effort. But taste awesome.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mtnbkr]

Goats...

Hogs require effort. But taste awesome.


So do goats.

Chris

[willie]

I trapped snakes as part of zoology research. Google the topic for ideas.
Any that you kill will reduce numbers. Many are nocturnal. Make a game out of hunting and killing. Consult nearest department of zoology for tips about natural predators in your area. Fish and game departments have zoologists who might be helpful. Most who get bit by poisonous snakes were "messing with" snake. Pellet rifle will do nicely. Some will tell you that cotton mouths are not aggressive. Maybe. Maybe not.