Non venomous snakes (bull, rat, king) they will eat the venomous ones.That's called practicing "integrated pest management"
Opossums are snake charmers! They eat them.
Non venomous snakes (bull, rat, king) they will eat the venomous ones.
I just pulled another 5 footer out of my chicken coop and made it spit out the egg it had just swallowed. Then I turned it loose for the dogs to terrorize. I'm pretty sure it got away as I haven't seen the carcass anywhere. Hope it learned a lesson.
If you use a weapon that blows their head into pieces, they will stop striking. Ask my 5 yo grand. He loves to show the bullet scar on the deck where papa shot the cotton mouth that was after the grand. The kid will even show you the exact spot in the yard where the biggest piece of snake head landed.1. rake the leaves in the yard in the winter before:
a) snakes come out of hibernation
b) before your start futzing in the yard.
2. Keep the grass mowed and weeds around the house cut back.
Think of it as a kill zone that allows birds and other critters to see them and eat them.
3. Wear shoes and gloves.
4. I have never killed a snake that died without a struggle.
Shoot em and they still strike and snap. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.
Chop em and they still strike and snap.
Not going to tell you how to kill a snake because I do not want to be required to write a over long legal disclaimer to relieve myself from legal liability when you get bit.
Northern Idaho, which is very different in many ways from the rest of Idaho does not have venomous snakes either.
LOL I've been shooting snakes with a .22 pistol ever since I was a teen. But like yeah, not on a deck, or something like that. Shot a Chicken Snake a couple of years ago with a 9MM, one in the yard, and a black snake down in the bottom, one shot head gone disappeared.Snakes are a hard target to aim at. Big snakes are easier. Small snakes are tough.
When I was a kid, my uncle held a rattler down with a shovel and let me shoot it with a 22. I shot it in the head - no effect.
Shot it a couple more times in the head - nothing. Uncle hit the shovel with his boot heel and cut off its head - that did it.
I was sitting in the back yard a couple years ago and heard the war start over at the neighbors.
Bam, bam, bam, bam.
Snake in an outside cabinet. Oh, he finally killed it but that cabinet had a bunch of holes in it.
So yes, if you know how to handle a firearm and have shot shells go for it. Plan on leaving divots in your deck, sidewalk, etc. Don't shoot your toe off.
P.S. Snakes climb. I've seen em hanging on window sills and out of trees. Just because you have potted plants on a shelf, does not mean they can't get there.
P.S. The favorite food of the copperhead is cicadas - those thumb size brown crunchy lava things that crawl out of the ground at night, climb about half way up a tree and then leave their shell and sprout wings. So running around barefoot under the trees at night is not advised.
Since you know they start out as grubs in the ground,
another preventive measure is the application of a grub killer on your lawn.
Had rattlesnake problem at place in West Texas, but after getting four cats, that we kept exclusively outside and did not over feed, they'd promptly cleared out all the mice & lizards all around the house and then we saw no more snakes.
Unfortunately, they'd later gotten picked off after 4 months by some predator up here, probably coyotes, bobcat or mountain lion, though some say fox tear into them here, too, and so now I stumbled across our first snake since then just this morning, a venomous eastern black-tailed rattlesnake (Crotalus ornatus)...
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Never boring!
Panic Early, Beat the Rush!
- Shane
Uhhh
I wanted to say timber rattlers, but they’re prairie rattlers or western rattler , interesting they’re not in N Idaho
It is said that rattlers are here, but NO ONE has ever seen one.
No, they don't, but legless lizards do:Snakes don’t have ears.