Gardeners have to make the compromise of living with critters. Some of these critters are furry and cute while others are scaly are frightening.
The latter are usually not so welcome in many homesteads, and the sight of a snake will indeed cause panic attacks in any homestead.
While a majority of the slithers are non-venomous, most people have an abnormal fear of snakes, also known as ophidiophobia.
Though snakes are quite elusive and will jump into hiding once they notice you, they can be quite a nuisance, especially if you have chicks or other small animals in your yard. This is not to mention that some still pose a potential threat.
Either way, territorial conflict doesn’t necessarily need to become a full-fledged war. In any case, there’re several snake friendly ways you can use to get rid of snakes.
In the article below, we shall highlight the top 6 ways you can use to get rid of snakes in your garden.
Top 6 Ways To Get Rid of Snakes in your Garden
Read more:How to Keep Rabbits and Squirrels Out of Your Garden?
1. Mowing and Trimming of Bushes
Even though some of the homeowners indeed love to have tall and thick grass in their yard, understand that this is a snake love potion.
For starters, tall grass tends to attract not only snakes but other critters and rodents. And secondly, snakes tend to hide in long grasses. So, if you’re to keep your yard with tall grass, you might as well invite the snakes for a backyard party as they are not going anywhere soon.
Regularly mowing, however, will ensure that you get rid of the snakes, as the snake will feel exposed and is most likely going to avoid the area.
Ideally, your grass should be no more than two inches, and you should trim it the moment you find it growing bigger.
2. Clean Up Any Outdoor Junk
Snakes find junk enticing. Anything that looks dark and cozy, for instance, leaves, overgrown shrubs grass clipping, are a perfect habitat for mice, and other rodents, and this makes it the ideal habitat for snakes, too.
You can either clean the outdoor junk using a lawn sweeper or even burn it to remove its trace completely.
While you can remove or burn some of the outdoor junk from your yard, understand that you cannot throw some of the essential items from your yard. For instance, you would not want to throw away firewood in from your yard. In this case, however, you can consider moving the firewood further away from your house perimeter, so at least the snakes are not hanging near your homestead.
3. Stop Feeding Them
If you’re looking to get rid of snakes from your homestead, you should put yourself in a snake’s shoes or rather its scaly skin.
Think about the reasons why snakes might be interested in your home or yard.
For instance, most of the snakes feed on a variety of small animals such as fishes, frogs, insects, slugs, chicks, eggs, and small mammals.
Now, if you’re having an abundance of these critters and animals in your yard, you might just be providing the snakes with the perfect dish.
Now, while it would really be impossible to get rid of all the pets and pests in your yard all at once, you can go a long way in creating an inhospitable yard for the prey. For instance, you can use insect and rodent repellants to deter away from the pests.
Now, while using repellents will disrupt the ecosystem in your garden, it will reduce on the number of potential prey in your gardens such as frogs, lizards, and mice, and this will go a long way in deterring snakes from your garden.
4. Secure your Outdoor Pets
As we mentioned earlier, beyond the pests on your garden, snakes also prey to your home pets, animals, and animal products.
For instance, snakes will prey on your chicks, and will even snatch eggs or bunnies out of a hutch.
So, it’s worth noting that if you have small backyard animals, understand that snakes view them as an easy source of meals.
Having that in mind, you can take the pains to secure your animals, and enclosing your animals against predators such as snakes should be one more reason why a snake wouldn’t want to hang in your homestead.
Some of the measures that you can take to secure your pets include:
- Covering any vents in the cages
- Ensuring you keep the door of the cages closed at all times
- Repairing or replacing damaged boards
5. Get Some Chicken
While snakes will prey to chick and eggs, they’re rarely a threat to the full-grown chicken. In fact, it’s the other way around as chickens are a threat to the snakes.
While this is a topic that causes some genuine conjecture, some of the chicken users have reported that chicken circle, attack and kill small snakes that may slither into their garden. However, you need to ensure that you collect the eggs frequently as possible.
6. Use Snake Repellents
There’re a variety of snake repellants that will allow you to get rid of snakes and other rodents from your household.
Some of the commercial repellents will work, though they’re usually associated with a caustic smell.
Besides the commercial snake repellents, there’re plants such as marigold, garlic, and lemongrass, which are associated with repelling characteristics not only to snakes but also other kinds of insects such as mosquitoes.
Either way understands that using repellents will not in any way deter snakes from coming into your garden. Ideally, to remove snakes from your garden, you should not rely on any single method, but rather use all the outline methods, and collectively, these methods should help in riding snakes from your garden.
Related posts: