Snake proofing yards

[Nay-DMAX]

Hi Swaggers I know this is off the camping topic but the warmer weather is upon us and having lost 2 dogs to snake bites over the previous 2 summers I was wondering if any swaggers have some good tips for snake proofing the yard.  I am thinking perhaps of having them both in big dog runs when we are not home and snake proofing these but still trying to find something suitable.  I have no faith in the solar snake deterrents as we have had snakes in the yard right near these.  We have cut the grass along the paddocks that are near the house yard and the house yard grass is pretty short.  So if you have any good ideas please let me know.

[Tim - Stratford]

Hi Renee,

After we had a copperhead in the yard a few years back - and we're in town - I removed all but one water bowl for the hound and set a trap or two in the woodshed. I heard somewhere that if you reduce shelter, food & water that snakes will move on. It may have worked - haven't seen a snake in the yard since.

....and the old shepherd is getting a bit old to take them out 

Tim

[KingBilly]

http://www.whiteswires.com.au/SearchResults/tabid/102/ProdID/122/Mouse-and-Snake-Meshes.aspx

[pinarelloman]

Sorry for your loss, that would be heart breaking. I can't offer any advice though.

[Nay-DMAX]

Sorry for your loss, that would be heart breaking. I can't offer any advice though.

Thanks for your message we lost Milli the red in my sig pic in December last year and Dash the blue in Oct the year before, Dash was only 3 too young and Milli was almost 10 and we had her since a pup.  Loved them both Dash had a real personality Milli was hands down the best dog I have ever owned.  Heart breaking is exactly it my dogs are my kids and I still miss them everyday.  We have got two again now and I just cannot lose anymore like this.


Tim and KB thanks for the posts think we will have to get some different mesh and do even more clean up we have been keeping grass around short but there is a few things that could use a tidy up still.  Tim when you say traps what do you mean??

[KingBilly]

A mate has a fine nylon fishing net around his house.  It traps the snakes.  Not sure where he got it from.  Will ask.

[Tim - Stratford]

Renee,

Mouse/rat traps...to stop a food source. Sarah would be too nervous doing the catch 'n release of a snake! 

Tim

[Nay-DMAX]

Renee,

Mouse/rat traps...to stop a food source. Sarah would be too nervous doing the catch 'n release of a snake! 

Tim

Ah yes we have some of these but need to set the shed ones again since it is mouse time of year again. I don't even empty the mouse traps I hate them too cheers

[BillC]

I worked at Yulara quite a few years ago and I still remember my first day at work. Snake proofing the child care centre!!! We used shade cloth buried into the ground and attached onto the fence. It is quite durable and easy to get but will depend on your situation.

Best of luck with it
Bill

[Big Damo]

Sorry to hear about the dog.
one of our dogs got bitten by a brown snake 2 years ago in the back yard we have now long grass or rubbish to hide under and I still ended up catch and releasing 4 snakes that year.
She was lucky and got great care from the local vet came home after 3 days and is still going strong here is a picture camping this year.
So as far as snake proofing just have the spade and rake ready to catch and release when you find them as we never thought we would see any and as I said caught 4 and 1 bit the dog can't say if it was one of the ones I caught though. but so far haven't seen any last summer or this one yet
Damo

[Nay-DMAX]

Sorry to hear about the dog.
one of our dogs got bitten by a brown snake 2 years ago in the back yard we have now long grass or rubbish to hide under and I still ended up catch and releasing 4 snakes that year.
She was lucky and got great care from the local vet came home after 3 days and is still going strong here is a picture camping this year.
So as far as snake proofing just have the spade and rake ready to catch and release when you find them as we never thought we would see any and as I said caught 4 and 1 bit the dog can't say if it was one of the ones I caught though. but so far haven't seen any last summer or this one yet
Damo

It is not a nice feeling we lost both our girls when we were at work they didnt get to see a vet hence wanting to  snakeproof or have yards to have them in during the day that snakes couldnt get in.  Glad your girl survived and is still getting out camping

[scarps]

Hey Nay, is this a problem for you all summer? You guys must always be on watch.


Sub post - At the moment I should be wiring in a uhf, instead I'm posting on myswag.

[Jasman]

I don't know if it's true or not but a guy told me if you lay bird netting (available in rolls at hardware shop) on the ground it catches snakes. Apparently when a snake slithers over it they get stuck and roll up in it. You can the decide how to deal with them once they are caught.

[MarkVS]

Renee,
very sorry for your dog losses. I know I would be devestated if I lost our dog.

We live on acreage (only an acre so easy to maintain), and have acreage homes around us and a large Macadamia farm on our back fence. We have neighbours who have seen Browns, and King Browns, and we have seen none(apart from some pythons and green tree snakes).

We have purposely taken some simple steps (which I read about prior to moving in) and I think have made a difference. 
1. Have no creepers (plants) in any of our gardens. All bushes or trees (nothing for them to hide in)
2. Have all of our garden beds on mounds with lawn in between which I keep at lawn length (snakes hate being in the open)
3. I don't store anything on the ground...it is off the ground or in the shed
4. The sheds always have mouse/rat baits in them, and I used expanding foam to fill in the gaps at the base of the shed walls to make it harder for any (rats/snakes) to crawl into the sheds.
5. We are lucky to have 2 resident kookaburras (they are territorial)

In the 5 years we have been in this house, we haven't seen any brown or black snakes whereas neighbours have.
 

Hope that helps.

MarkVS

[Andreweasty90]

We have had a few snakes at this place but none since the dog came but when I redo the fence in a few months I will be putting mesh into the ground from the bottom rail to stop pup from digging under and anything coming in only good snake is a dead snake


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[Moggy]

Get a couple of sacrificial fox terriers, local pound will keep up supply.?
Seriously though I did some work for person who had avaries with a variety of birds but mostly finches & he had a low voltage/current wire running around the avaries.  Reckons that stopped his snake problem.  I seem to recall he did that as whilst the foxies were good to heartbreaking when they lost the battle.  I dont remember if there were any problems for dogs cocking there leg

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[Mik01]

Hey mate - we live on acreage and are just looking into this. My neighbour swears by getting a few guinea fowl to roam around.
They attack all types of rodents, inclusions snakes and keep them away.
Also added benefit of eating ticks he says.

I will be getting a few ASAP. This might be one of your weapons, as well as recommendations from others already posted.

http://www.guineafowlforsale.com.au/about_guinea_fowl_and_keets.php

[Nay-DMAX]

Hey Nay, is this a problem for you all summer? You guys must always be on watch.


Sub post - At the moment I should be wiring in a uhf, instead I'm posting on myswag.

Yes all of Summer but starts as soon as we get warm days first few years here we hardly saw any but the last couple of summers have been more, the floods brought more frogs a few years back and there have been a lot of mice the last few years.

Renee,
very sorry for your dog losses. I know I would be devestated if I lost our dog.

We live on acreage (only an acre so easy to maintain), and have acreage homes around us and a large Macadamia farm on our back fence. We have neighbours who have seen Browns, and King Browns, and we have seen none(apart from some pythons and green tree snakes).

We have purposely taken some simple steps (which I read about prior to moving in) and I think have made a difference. 
1. Have no creepers (plants) in any of our gardens. All bushes or trees (nothing for them to hide in)
2. Have all of our garden beds on mounds with lawn in between which I keep at lawn length (snakes hate being in the open)
3. I don't store anything on the ground...it is off the ground or in the shed
4. The sheds always have mouse/rat baits in them, and I used expanding foam to fill in the gaps at the base of the shed walls to make it harder for any (rats/snakes) to crawl into the sheds.
5. We are lucky to have 2 resident kookaburras (they are territorial)

In the 5 years we have been in this house, we haven't seen any brown or black snakes whereas neighbours have.
 

Hope that helps.

MarkVS

Thanks for that info Mark, we don't have any gardens at all and have the lawn and adjoining paddocks short there is some stuff that needs to be taken out of the yard I think and we will be getting that done straight away, lino6 has some ideas to reduce the water around the yard.  We have bird netting but I don't think I have put it on well enough so will probably have to get more and replace it.  Our problem is also the yard is quite big and whilst the dogs cannot go under the house anymore snakes can still come in that way house on stumps. We also have farming land around us and the neighbours place has good hiding spots I wonder if this one came from there because we were baling hay in there yesterday.

Hey mate - we live on acreage and are just looking into this. My neighbour swears by getting a few guinea fowl to roam around.
They attack all types of rodents, inclusions snakes and keep them away.
Also added benefit of eating ticks he says.

I will be getting a few ASAP. This might be one of your weapons, as well as recommendations from others already posted.

http://www.guineafowlforsale.com.au/about_guinea_fowl_and_keets.php

I have read good things about the guineafowl also however I don't think they would survive here with our dogs, the dog who just came with us this year has an obsession of chasing birds away from the yard.

We will work on trying to make it harder is there anyone who knows about an actual day yard I was thinking of getting something like large dog yard panels and then putting the small mesh on the bottom into the ground and locking them up during the day.

[Andreweasty90]

It's a bit mean but you could alway buy a few live mice from a pet shop and release them they are treated with something that will kill a pet snake if it eats them to stop people feeding live mice to pet snakes can't see the difference between a pet snake and a wild one


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[Nay-DMAX]

It's a bit mean but you could alway buy a few live mice from a pet shop and release them they are treated with something that will kill a pet snake if it eats them to stop people feeding live mice to pet snakes can't see the difference between a pet snake and a wild one


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The risk with that is what if it is not a snake that gets it but one of the dogs or the cat, we don't bait for mice for that reason we do set traps. We have mice in the hay shed which of course attracts the snakes but no recent sightings and the dogs are in the run when we are out.  For the hot days ice in their shell pool.

[lilstookie]

Guinea fowl...they're supposed to be great at keeping snakes under control. Add to your menagerie

Lil


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[Desert lover]

I don't know if it's true or not but a guy told me if you lay bird netting (available in rolls at hardware shop) on the ground it catches snakes. Apparently when a snake slithers over it they get stuck and roll up in it. You can the decide how to deal with them once they are caught.

I also have heard of this technique...apparently you lay it out around the area you want to protect and bunch it up.  The slitherer will try and slide through but get tangled.  Personally I'd like to see it work before I totally entrusted our new pup to this system but the interim protection? hmm not sure. I would hate to see our pup get bitten either so Good luck and keep us informed on any progress. 
Regards,
Sue

[Nay-DMAX]

Guinea fowl...they're supposed to be great at keeping snakes under control. Add to your menagerie

Lil


Sent from my fingertips using my brain

Hi Lil as mentioned above could not get guinea fowl as we have a very bird obsessed dog here 

I also have heard of this technique...apparently you lay it out around the area you want to protect and bunch it up.  The slitherer will try and slide through but get tangled.  Personally I'd like to see it work before I totally entrusted our new pup to this system but the interim protection? hmm not sure. I would hate to see our pup get bitten either so Good luck and keep us informed on any progress. 
Regards,
Sue

Sue we have some bird netting around the yard the problem we have is that being in a rural area our yard is very big and we have gates etc that they would still be able to get underneath.  The bird netting is hard to lay and attach so that it sits into the ground and up the edge of the fence whilst still being bunched up as well I don't think we found a great way to do that but I have heard of people that have found snakes in it.  In saying that I am not sure that is legal.  I am not sure if my post about the yard we made ended up in this thread or not if not I will go and find the pics I took and post them.  Basically when we go to work now or out the dogs are in a run with small mesh on the outside of it that goes out across the ground, the run is not huge so they don't love to go in there but it is for their safety they have enough room to walk around a bit and the end part where the cage is has a lot of shade for them and a kennel.

[Nay-DMAX]

Here is what we have done I must of only put a post in the what were you doing half an hour ago thread when I made the yards.  So we already had the cage and got some temp fence panels and lino6 smacked them into the ground then I put all the wire mesh on with zip ties and cut pieces for the corners.  Tent pegs were too big to attached it to the ground so I made my own pegs with bent fencing wire there is now also another piece of shade clothe over the top middle section as much as you need to limit water I do put their pool in there on hot days and put ice in it if it is going to be really warm.  Sorry not sure what I am doing wrong with my photos.

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[terravista]

You could get a solar powered snake repeller or five from Pestrol.

Site quote : "The snake repeller will vibrate within the ground sending off warning sounds to snakes 30m in circumference".

I thought snakes were deaf, and I also hope they mean the repeller works in a 30m circumference area, not that it works on snakes 30m circumference. That would be one Godzilla sized snake.

http://www.pestrol.com.au/reptiles/pestrol-snake-away.html

We had a Jack Russell a few years ago who went head to head with a red gutted black. They both lost, the snake in the fight, then the dog four days and $3 500 in vet bills later. If these worked you could get a bunch of repellers for a small part of a vet or dog replacement bill.
No affiliation and don't have a clue whether they work. We did have a mouse repeller from them that plugged into a power point, and that never worked.
Cheers
Ian