That's great for you, Deerman, and I understand where you are coming from. I feel the same way about kudzu. But it's here so we have to make the best of it. To me, that means having barn cats to keep the snakes from scaring me so badly that I nearly poop in my pants and run my fat butt uphill at 90 miles an hour while wearing flip flops to get away from the snake.
It's a matter of self preservation. You have traps, I have cats. Freedom. Ain't it grand?
Every couple of years I hear a mouse in the walls (old farm house), and I get a 3-5 ft rat snake and release it into the wall behind my washer/dryer. They'll live in the walls long enough to kill all the mice, and when there's nothing left to eat they make their way outside and follow the mice to the barn
This is farking brilliant! What a great way to utilize resources. I don't anticipate a problem with snakes in my suburban yard but I will rehome one if I find it.
Now the backsidehat's cats that live behind me and free range I am still trying to decide how to dispose of, the county pound or.....
With the recent passing of Michael Jackson this little story fits right in...
In the early 1980's, I was a field engineer for a unique low voltage lighting company. Any of you old enough to remember "Disco" will remember the little incandescent lights in the plastic tubing. It outlined buildings, stairways, theater aisles, inlaid in dance floors and walkways. I traveled around the country and even other countries!
My company was strictly a manufacturing company. We didn't do installations...but they would send me out to oversee and/or correct a contractors mistake or on warranty issues.
I also did "side jobs"... installations and work on my own time.
One of my customers was Michael. I worked at the family home in Encino.
I was making big money traveling all the way out there from Riverside County where I lived. $45.00/hr!!! I loved that job
Anyway...the first time I ever went there, I was walking around the yard with Michael and he was pointing out all the places where he wanted lights and also where there were already lights to repair. The yard had a "meandering" brick walkway that had bender board alongside of it with my lights in the groove created by the bender board. As we walked deeper into the back of the yard there was a huge parrot cage. In the cage was about a 6-8 ft Python! The bottom of the cage was covered in grain/birdfood/whatever, and I asked WHY??? He told me the rats run the telephone wires from backyard to backyard and then get up into the Avacado trees. The rats destroy the Avacados because they hang down and are only able to nibble at the stem end and then the fruit falls to the ground or spoils in the tree. He said the snake was there to catch rats who came down into the yard and that the rats would go after the grain and WHAM!
Maybe a good snake in a cage...kept in our hen houses would be a solution to rodents!
We have most likely twenty black snakes in our back yard, 5 acres fully wooded in, among other snakes. WE have no rats or mice and I assure you they are most likely eating every three days or so. They require considerably more food than every month, that is not healthy for them.
And the chickens will eat the black snakes if they get to close so we don't have to worry about them bothering our hens and have yet to see one anywhere near our coupes. Just in the woods.
We have zero mice and or rats around. In 11 months we have seen one and our cat took him down.
Where are you finding snakes that size I have a rat problem & they are too smart for traps. In fact they not only avoid the rat traps but I set smaller traps for the little ones & I found they were all sprung with no catches
. I live in Michigan and would like to release a native breed into the rat hole but don't know where to find one.
