Snakes in your backyard: It's OK to leave them alone
By Barbara Elmore Special to the Tribune-Herald
Tips
Here are some ways to keep snakes at bay in your yards and gardens:
- Put simple silt fencing, a black fabric used for erosion control, around your compost pile. It’s available from home improvement stores in 2-foot heights. Snakes do not dig, so they won’t go under it, snake-remover Tom Regner of Austin noted. He does not recommend netting or anything else that a snake will try to go through and get caught in.
- Put an electric wire around the pile. When the snakes touch it, they will recoil.
- Bury a 10-gallon, smooth-sided bucket in the ground. The snake will go in and can’t get out. Use a stick to raise the handle and carry the bucket, and the snake, to a less-populated spot.
- Use a snake trap. Regner’s Town Lake Construction (www.batspecialist.com) makes them for commercial clients, but homeowners can make their own by putting glue traps into a cardboard box. Snakes will crawl in and get trapped in the glue. You can remove the glue traps and release the snake. If you don’t want to make your own, you can also find them online.
- Get rid of weeds, boards, and junk, which attract rats, lizards and frogs. “Snakes will go where there is warmth, shelter, and to look for animals to eat,” Regner noted.“I am not a fan of snake-away products,” he added. “They can work, but basically they are just moth balls, so they create a toxic environment.” His business removes birds, bats, snakes and other pests humanely and does not use poisons.
The good news about snakes is that a gardener with an acute sense of smell might be able to smell it before she steps on it.
The bad news is that a really smelly snake might be one of Texas’ venomous ones — the cottonmouth water moccasin.
Waco-area residents and people in wetter, eastern counties are more likely to see water moccasins than people in other parts of the state.
The Eastern hognose snake (above) is often mistaken by Waco-area gardeners to be the venomous cottonmouth, which is known to possess a skunklike odor.
Jim Mone/Associated Press
But Joel Sanchez, field supervisor for animal control in Waco, said the Eastern hognose snake, similar in appearance to the venomous water moccasin, is the more likely culprit.
He said he sometimes hears about that snake from people living near the lake and they confuse it with the water moccasin.
Main diet
The hognose snake’s main diet is frogs and it rarely bites people.
About that smell: Tom Regner of Austin, who ferrets out venomous snakes from buildings for commercial clients statewide, said the cottonmouth has a stench.
“It’s sweet and foul, a skunklike smell, especially if provoked,” Regner said. “Many times I have smelled them before I’ve found them.”
He does not recall a particular rattlesnake odor, though, and cautioned that not all rattlesnakes make a sound.
That’s good to keep in mind because rattlesnakes are almost everywhere, including Waco.
The other two types of venomous snakes in Texas are copperheads and coral snakes, which area residents are less likely to come upon.
While many gardeners might be seeking ways to get snakes out of the backyard, people who really know snakes, such as Regner, bring them in. He uses beneficial, nonvenomous snakes for rodent control.
Many of the snakes Sanchez faces in Waco are Texas rat snakes, which switch their tail like a rattlesnake and have a box-pattern on their back that many people confuse with the diamond pattern on a rattler.
Rat snakes made up the majority of his snake calls last year. He has had few calls so far this spring.
In the home
If the snake is inside your home, Waco animal control will respond or, after hours, send out a patrol car if one is available, Sanchez said.
But if the snake in your backyard or compost pile is one of the nonharmful varieties, it’s best to leave it alone.
It may make your skin crawl, but it will get rid of rats and other critters invading your compost pile and yard.
If you fear snakes, watch for them mainly on cool mornings because if your compost pile is hot (as it should be if it’s working properly), snakes will crawl on top of it for warmth.
Barbara Elmore gardens in Fredericksburg and publishes a free garden and home newsletter. Send e-mail to her at barbara@digandletdig.com.
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