I’ve heard them all… moth balls, peroxide, bleach, milk, sonic-devices, pheromones/scents/perfumes, other animals…  all of it is entirely useless against snakes and typically pollute and kill everything EXCEPT your target.   Snakes are like any other animal… they require food, water, shelter & security.   Even “snake-fences” – a fine wire mesh with a 30-degree outward angle, frequently can’t keep out most tiny juvenile snakes who, provided their needs are being met, will happily grow to maturity on your property.  Harmless ratsnakes, in particular, are well-known for being able to thwart almost any barrier.

The ONLY real way to dissuade snakes from coming on your property is to deny them their basic needs.  Here’s some ways that can help…

• Remove access to potential shelters.  Rock & wood piles, cracks and holes are perfect homes for snakes.  You need to try to eliminate any place they can squeeze into that provides shelter and security.
• Eliminate potential prey, typically rodents.  Open pet food, bird-seed, trash, compost and other potential food sources is what attracts rodents to live in close proximity to humans.  Eliminate food for rodents and you eliminate food for snakes.  Keep all bird-feeders, bird-houses, etc well away from your home.
• Remove all sources of open or standing water.  This includes pet’s water dishes & anything that accumulates rain-water, like old tires, barrels, etc.  Not only does water attract snakes, and potential snake-prey, like amphibians, it also provides a home for far more dangerous disease-spreading insects like mosquitos.
• Keep your yard clean.  Keep the grass low-cut, remove stray branches & wood, and limit your recreational activities to those well-manicured areas.  Snakes want to avoid exposing themselves to their own predators, so eliminating camouflage opportunities will deprive them of that sense of security.
• Keep your garden well-manicured.   Trim bushes 8-12 inches above the ground to reduce climbing opportunities, and flowers spaced widely apart with as little mulch as possible to eliminate cover.
• No fence is 100% “snake-proof,” but a finely meshed fence leaning outward at a 30-degree angle, extending 6″ below ground & sealed with 1/4″ hardware cloth serves as a difficult obstacle for many heavy-bodied venomous species.
• For additional security, you can install 1/4-inch hardware cloth, buried at least 6 inches under all fences, sheds and other buildings to assist in reducing potential points of entry below ground.

There are also benefits to ATTRACTING snakes to your property, primarily pest control.  Snakes are particularly desirable when you live outside the range of any dangerous, venomous species, like here in Nova Scotia.  Our local harmless species all provide ample benefits to us, controlling home & garden pests, so having them around the property can be very beneficial!  Attracting snakes involves providing those things we’ve already mentioned… shelters, security, water and potential prey.  Rock and wood piles, small bodies of water are great ways of providing homes for snakes, and so long as there’s a supply of prey, they’ll take care of your pests!   Even venomous snakes can be very desirable for pest control, but if you have free-roaming pets or children playing in your back yard, taking the safety precautions mentioned above will help reduce the chances of an accidental encounter.

It’s also VERY important that you’re educate yourself about what species are native to your area, so you can make informed decisions about the precautions you may want to take.  Here in Nova Scotia, we have only 5 species of snakes, and all are harmless, but make sure you know the range & distribution of the various species in your region.  That information is usually available on public government websites, like the Nova Scotia Museum, but you may also want to pick up a Peterson’s Field Guide to Reptiles & Amphibians for your region, which includes detailed information to help you identify your local species, their range & distribution, as well as which species are dangerous.

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When a snake consumes a large prey item, on the other hand, no bones are ever out of position or dislocated, thanks to some key anatomical innovations.  Unlike us, as snake’s lower jaw is split into two independent segments.  This allows the snake to stretch their lower jaws widely apart to accommodate huge meals, but the real magic happens with an incredibly flexible Quadrate Bone.

All four-limbed animals have a quadrate, but it has been adapted to serve various purposes in different animals.  In humans and mammals, for example, the quadrate bone has been adapted to become a part of our inner-ear,  specifically, the hammer (mallues) which, with the anvil (incus), connects our eardrum to our inner ear, allowing us to perceive airborne sounds.  In snakes, however, the quadrate bone connects the lower jaw to the skull via flexible ligaments that give them an immense range to movement, allowing them to swing their jaws nearly 180 degree wide, encompassing almost any sized meal.

Like us, a snake’s quadrate bone is also connected to a snake’s inner ear and instrumental in hearing.  Snakes lack outer ears and eardrums, so they can’t hear the broad range of airborne sounds that we can, but they are sensitive to low-frequency sounds.  By placing their head on the ground, they are able to perceive low-frequency sound of a rodent’s footstep, for example, through their lower jaw via their quadrate bone.  This helps them hone in on potential prey & warn them of approaching threats,

While a snake’s unique skull is incredibly flexible and versatile, no bones actually get dislocated in the process.  Their mouths are just really, REALLY stretchy!

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Now imagine if, before you could launch your surprise attack, you had to stretch out beside your prey to see if they were an appropriate size first.  In that context, you can quickly see that exposing yourself to take measurements wouldn’t be an effective hunting strategy for any predator, especially a camouflaged ambush predator like a large python or boa.

So how DO snakes size up their meals? The sad truth is, they generally don’t. While they tend to prefer safe, familiar prey that they have experience eating, snakes are opportunistic predators, generally taking prey whenever they can, since they never know when they’ll have the opportunity to eat again. Guided by scent and/or heat, non-venomous snakes typically try to launch their jaws at the head, hopefully incapacitating the prey’s ability to bite defensively, and providing a solid anchor-point to wrap the prey in several coils in order to constrict circulation & increasing vascular pressure to the point of cardiac arrest. A snake can consume prey much larger than their own girth, so a very hungry snake will have a go at almost anything it can successfully overpower, which will be proportional to the snake’s size.

In fact, a hungry snake who makes a successful kill often won’t realize that the prey item is too large until they run into difficulty swallowing it.  In rare instances, an overly-eager snake can cause serious damage to themselves in the process and, in very rare cases, even death.  Typically, however, once a snake realizes they’re in over their head, they will regurgitate the prey immediately.  A snake’s only defence is their mouth full of teeth, so they’re quick to give up on a meal when they feel too vulnerable or threatened while trying to swallow a large meal.

When your pet snake stretches out next to you, however, they’re only seeking cover, warmth or simply exploring.  A snake in hunting/feeding mode behaves very differently – coiled, tense muscles and ready to strike – and that behaviour becomes very easy to identify for an experienced keeper.  Feeding is the very last thing on the mind of a vulnerable, exposed pet snake that’s stretched out beside you.

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Typically shy and solitary creatures, substantial mystery surrounds snakes, such that a number of persistent myths have developed over the centuries. Let’s have a little post-series about some of the common Snake Myths!

Constantly flicking allows snakes to collect particles from the air with their moist forked tongue, which is far more efficient than simply breathing particles through their nostrils as we do. As they do so, they withdraw their tongue and poke the two pointy tips into two small holes in the roof of their mouth that lead to an extremely sensitive organ called the Jacobson’s organ. Thousands of times more sensitive than our own sense of smell, snakes are able to detect molecules that are entirely undetectable by us.

The absolute WORST damage that a snake can inflict with it’s sharp tongue is tickling you! Sandy, my Florida kingsnake, is quite active and particularly notorious for his tongue-tickles as he explores whoever is handling him.

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