Preventing Snake Infestation - Endangered Species and Not

By Patty Inglish, MS

How Can I Get Rid of Snakes in the Home and Garden?

 San Francisco Garter Snake - Endangered Species

Snakes in the Garden

Personally, I like snakes and visit them in the zoos of the world when I visit each new city blessed by a zoological garden or a reptile exhibit of some kind, I was once fortunate enough to receive a backstage tour, as it were, of a major metropolitan zoo. There, I was able to hold part of a large python. He felt like plastic.

As a child, I saw my first tiny green garden snakes at a highway rest stop and was fascinated. They were not slimy like worms and they were pretty with their bright green scales. They scared my mother, so I could not bring them home, plus they belonged to the Division of Highways, I suppose...

Short of having a St. Patrick impersonator drive the snakes out of your home and garden, my friends that have endured pest-snakes recommend Snake Fence, patent pending 11784567. It is an actual plastic net fencing material one foot tall that comes in rolls of 10 and 25 feet long. The holes in the fencing come in 6 different diameters from 4 - 36 inches. However, this represents the possibility of injuring other animals, including birds, and may best be discarded as an idea.

It is possible to purchase thin aluminum flashing or some small-holed netting to place all along your total fencing like a tall baseboard, but you need a fence all the way around your property for this to work. Animals can chew through the netting, however; less so, the metal.

As a child, I would have liked to have had WORM FENCE, but now I like worms for composting purposes. Some people enjoy them as a snack or a meal, as some people do snakes.

In addition to fencing materials, there are also methods of controlling the snake population around your home and garden.

Do No Harm

Snake repellents have a good chance of preventing the reptiles from entering your property perimeter, much less your house. Applying it is like spraying your door jams with ant spray to prevent ants from entering. Before purchasing any such chemical repellent, check the labels for information about any poisoning agents in the mixture, and what it is likely to do to the snakes, your small children, your pets, your landscaping, and yourself. Choose the least harmful or a nontoxic variety. However, if you need to ward off poisonous snakes, you may feel that you need to destroy them. Or, you might call animal control, which might relocate them.

From Where Did These Snakes Originate?

Why are snakes taking a sunbath on your patio or eating your tomatoes? Why don't they go home? They may already BE home, in their estimation,

Hiding Places

When it's cold, snakes like to go where it's warm - quickly - so rather than pack off to Florida, they stuff themselves into the cracks in your patio, concrete or wooden steps to the house, basement walls, or house foundation - or in a heated driveway if you have one of those. There may be similar hiding places in garages, tool sheds, backyard greenhouses, and dog houses. A 1/2 inch wide crack is all many of these animals need - like the mice that can squeeze under the smallest air leak beneath a door. Look for these cracks and openings and seal them off.

See all 1 photos

Rough green snake. Grows 2'-3' in the SE United States and is kept as a pet.

Speaking of Mice...

Snakes like to eat mice, so if you have a mouse problem, solve that and eliminate a good part of your snake problem as well in the process. If you do not wish to destroy the mice, remove their ability to find food on your property. Store garden seed, dry dog food, birdseed, and all other grains and food kept outside in metal or plastic garbage cans with tight lids. Take away stacks of wood that are up against the house or garage, and seal up all the tiny and larger cracks.

Tiny hiding garden snake.

Snakes can fit into odd places.

Snake gourd, much like a snake. It is easy to become confused.

Landscaping Tricks

Try making it hard for snakes to hide in on the ground and in low-hanging branches. Remove their camouflaging landscaping where you can.

You probably will not be experiencing large tree snakes in your backyard, unless they have escaped form a neighbor's home where they are kept as a pet, legal or illegal. If you DO find one of these, it is best to call either the neighbor or animal control to help you and the snake by removing it to a better home.

Trim your shrubbery and trees to make an open space 6 or more inches from the ground to the first branches of the plants. Ground cover plants might still afford some hiding places for garter snakes, but you likely don't want to remove all your ground cover. It's a personal call.

As much as possible, keep your lawns mowed short. The larger you can make this closely mowed area, the less able will be your legless reptile visitors from hiding and refusing to leave. It would be greatly convenient to have grass that is a different shade of green that your snakes as well. A bright green snake against a dark green lawn shows up pretty clearly. Brown snakes are harder to see in dark grasses.

Other Ideas

In addition to ridding your lawn, garden, and house of mice, you need to eliminate rats, frogs, and other small animal life that snakes can eat, as well as fruit fallen from trees and bushes. Pools of standing water, including garden ponds, can also house snakes. You may need to eliminate all of these features, depending on how massive your snake infestation becomes.

If you have a vegetable garden, you might consider placing a fence around it that will keep the snakes out, but which you can step over.

It is wise to dispose of any debris and piles of trash/leaves or old clothing you have around the year or garage. Cardboard boxes may also be good hiding places.

There is an electronic snake repellent that pulses vibrations that snakes do not enjoy and you might consider this alternative.

Glue boards like those used for mice can be used, but then you have a snake stuck inhumanely to a paper board. What does one do with a snake stock on a cardboard?

Sometimes, a large inflatable snake will scare off smaller snakes, but not always. A car may also capture and eat snakes, but likely inconsistently