I have had it up to Here with SNAKES

Not around here. The Cottonmouths will eat anything, including black rat snakes, that we had in numbers until about a thousand acres just across the Bayou was cleared, and we received the hordes of Cottonmouths.
6 Years later they are fewer in number, after they ate all our local critters.

I remember once when I lived in Hawaii and there were these very large toads there...I think Bufus (sp?) toads-about 5" high and round-big boys. There are also huge poisonous centipedes-about 6" long, .5" wide and a reddish color.

Anyway, one night I watched a toad eating a big centipede-it took forever and the end of the centipede was whipping around the toads head, but he didn't care. he just sat there with this dreamy expression on his face ( lol I am guessing here about his emotional state of mind) and slowly swallowed it. I tmust have taken 1/2 hr. Then when he totally ingested it, you could see the centipede moving around in his stomach....it was fascinating but repulsive at the same time.

I was just out feeding the Pheasant and near his cage was a 4 foot Cottonmouth. He dived under the boardwalk quickly.
They just won't stay away.

trois, do you want to catch and or remove/kill him? I don;t know how comfortable you are with him so close (?) to your setup. If you do, I think in these instances where you know he is hanging around an area, I would take deer netting and cut it widthwise ( if the 7' high) and crumple it up a bit and lay it longwise right where the boardwalk is and when he comes out, he will get caught up in the netting. Never fails. Depending on the snake, you can cut the deer netting off of him and put him somewhere else etc.

I have no problem with snakes. If a Cottonmouth becomes agressive and attemps to "get someone", I shoot them. Otherwise, I leave them alone as they are generally beneficial. Most get away from humans. We have had a few, maybe a dozen, that become very agressive. DW has had to shoot a couple that were going to forbid her access to her lily pond.
One killed our big Red dog. Bit on the tongue, died in minutes.
One bit me on the forearm, but injected no venom. No problem. Still not scared, just more observant.

trois

I had no snakes when I moved in to my Montana house. Now they are everywhere and I am glad because I think they are a good reflection of the health of the garden. Even we Republicans like a healthy garden. LOL Or ours are just garder snakes.

Trois said this: "Just a little aside. I have a picture of a Cottonmouth eating a Kingsnake in my back yard. Cottonmouths will eat anything they can swallow" And Trois has been snakebit. Ouch.
I've had several dogs get bitten by rattlesnakes, but they have survived. When my husband was a boy, his big boxer wouldn't let him go into some brambles after a rabbit. He saw in the moolight that it was standing over a rattler that kept biting him. The dog laid on the porch for a week, wouldn't eat or drink, then got well, then got stolen by a nieghbor.

Here is a picture of the opposite--a kingsnake eating a cottonmouth in our dog yard. My son took the picture in almost complete dark. The digital camera supplied enough light without using the flash.

moth balls work at keeping them away

I've heard the mothball strategy, but in an earlier post Larkie said it didn't work. Mothballs are too much chemical for me, smelly, too. I'm not terrified of snakes (except when I almost step on one) and kill them only when they won't stay away from the house. I have a water snake that gives me a real thrill! in the koi ponds not 10 feet from my front door.

In The Sticks where I live, I'd rather have snakes around me than the people I see on the news every cotton-pickin' day. Now and then you will find a snake that is territorial or aggressive or in a bad mood. But most of the time they would much rather slither out of the way.

I think they're a lot like dogs. Mark Twain said somthing like-- "The difference between a man and a dog is this--when you feed a dog, it won't bite your hand."

I agree, but I haver not seen one this year. It has been very wet, so no need to come to my ponds.

Man, snakes give me the willies! I'm so happy I've been lucky enough to live places that have few snakes and even fewer poisonous snakes. I don't know how you folks in venomous snake heavens deal with it. Brrrrr!

Before we moved this summer my husband killed a 5 foot cooperhead in the puppies pool.

I Still prefer snakes to rats.

I prefer snakes to rats, too, but they still give me the heebie-jeebies.

i don't realy mind the snakes if they stay out of the pool. now rats? i'll get my gun

Lyme, sprinkle lyme around your house, pond's area with lyme will deter snakes from crossing the forbidden areas. Anyone ever tried that?

Hi,
Hi,
Even though I grew up with crazy parents who had snakes as pets, so I am not afraid of them, I understand many people are. A natural enemy to a snake, believe it or not, is an oppossom. When I moved into my new place, I accidently trapped one in my garage. I didn't know his home was under my house. After I got over his ugliness, I found that I did not have the trouble in my garden other people were having. They kill snakes, eat slugs, snails and many other garden pests. Because of their eating habits, people assume they must be full of diseases etc. Not true. They also do not dig, so they won't ruin your garden. Unfortunately, they are very transient and don't stay anywhere long. Mine left after a couple of months and now I have all kinds of annoying critters. I don't know if they are prevelant where you live, but if you could get one (their favorite food is canned cat food) to stick around, under a house, an old building, old squirrel holes, you would no longer have a problem with snakes or anything else. Even the poisonous ones don't affect them. I am trying to figure out how to get one to "move in" next spring. They are nocternal so you really don' have to deal with them. Good luck with whatever you do.
Vicki

The problem is if you leave cat food lying around under your deck, you're more likely to get cats, raccoons, etc than opossums!

Possums spray musk.
Nasty smelling stuff.
Not as stinky /strong but lasts as long and as hard to get rid of.
Shy Ann cornered one that was about her own size(big possum).
She came inside and stank like heck.
I didn't know she had killed a possum at the time,not till later.
Anyway she stank so I looked it up on the net-Possums spray stink at their enemies.
I consider her lucky,I've had several people tell me their dogs got really torn up by those giant ugly rat looking critters.
I don't like them.Worse than wild cats,both spread fleas all over the place.
You can have both of them.