Will / do Pilgrim Geese eat Coy. UPDATE!!!!

[jojo@rolling acres farm]

marathonmom...from what I understand...this trapper is a real character. I'm planning on hiring him this winter to trap my creek. Here' another sombering thought, all the farmers around here are telling me that they are seeing MORE offspring this season than they've ever seen before....GREAT!

We have a lot of them here. I'm surrounded on three sides of my property by a deep ravine with running water. We have a very wooded area here too. Huge Cottonwood, Mulberry and Walnut trees and the coons just love it here. We've trapped them ourselves but my teenage boys are much too busy with their social lives to be of much help anymore. Last winter, the neigbor across the way and down the creek trapped 23 and really didn't work very hard at it at all. They are everywhere.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Well it wasn’t the geese or ducks and my wife isn’t crazy. Well at least about seeing a snake. Daughters just saw it getting out of the pond. She only saw about 6” or 8” of the tail end. From what she and the wife saw it sounds to be too big in diameter to be a garter snake. At this point all I know is it appears to be black. At least it didn’t get any fish this time. It’ll be back.

 

[RAREROO]

If you can find some 1x1 inch plastic mess to loosly fence around your koi pond, it will catch the snake. being plastic mess, it gets hooked down in the scales and the snake gets stuck and trys to go turn back and goes through it in another hole and gets hisself more stuck. Once it is stuck you can kill it and cut out the pice of mesh and through it all away.

I have some around my vegetable garden ists like a 3 x 50 ft roll that I bought at Walmart for $10 and I had a huge indigo snake get caught in it. Unfortunately it was dead by the time I found it. We dont kill indigo snakes becuase they eat rattlesnakes, I have found one onetime eating a rattle snake twice his size.

Then I had a big roll of 1x1 plastic netting that I had just bought and took out of the package and I still had it folded up and just sitting on top of one of my chicken shelters and an rat snake got caught caught up it the same way. Luckily is was still alive and i was able to get some clippers and track down each thread that was caught in his scales and get him free and release him again.

So is should work just as easily for a snake that I am thinking is probably a cottonmouth but your desciption. And it should be caught, killed, and disposed off. Good luck.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Tomorrow I’m going to try to smoke the snake out of its hiding place. Someone told me to spray gasoline or diesel fuel in the place I think its hiding and that will run it out. I prefer a less toxic method. I’ll go see if Home Depot has any netting just to have on hand. Hopefully I can smoke the critter out. If its non-poisonous and I catch it, it will live. If my wife sees it when I’m not home it will be turned into hamburger no matter what kind of snake it is.

 

[chickenzoo]

Owls will take them at night and Hawks will during the day. I lost some of my best goldfish to an Owl.

 

[arherp]

I am in to herpetology, so I know a lot about snakes. I would say northern water snake, large garter snake, or something of the like. The behavior does not sound like that of a venemous snake. A minnow trap will catch the snake. Tie a rope
to the trap to make it parralel with the ponds water surface, but also so that it has a 1" gap of air at the top. Check frequently n

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

Quote:
I’ve heard of snakes being caught in minnow traps. However I thought the person just happened to check the trap when the snake was in it. I thought a snake would be able to find the hole it went in through and get back out. The thought had occurred to me and it’s still on my short list of things to try.

From the size (diameter) of the snake my wife and daughter have given I now think its too big for a garter snake. I’m thinking NA (Yellow Belly) Water snake and hoping its not a Moccasin. Could be a Black Rat but I doubt that. Could also be a Speckled King and they didn’t see the spots. Neither my wife nor daughter got a good look or saw the whole snake.

I’ll let everyone know what it was if I catch it or the wife kills it. I’m with the don’t kill snakes unnecessarily crowd. But if it’s necessary…. oh well.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Show Me Chick]

I figure a raccoon or cat is doing it. I have a koi pond and these are the two predators I have a major problem with. Get a live trap put sardines in it and place it by the pond.

 

[RAREROO]

And I just wanna back up a minute and ask are you guys sure geese wont eat koi ? I know that either way ducks and geese will destroy any water plants in a water garden and I'm pretty sure the ducks are what killed my pet catfish that I had left in the gold fish pond, I had already taken the gold fish out though but even when had the goldfish in there I would see the ducks try to catch them when they would get in there. And I would just imagine geese would be worse than ducks about eating fish.

 

[cracking up]

Ducks will eat fish but geese are pretty strict vegetarians.