How do I keep snakes away from my houseboat at the dock?
Hello, welcome to Just Answer !
The various snake repellants on the market and available at larger garden and home supply stores do not get good reviews.
Our chat has ended, but you can still continue to ask me questions here until you are satisfied with your answer. Come back to this page to view our conversation and any other new information. What happens now? If you haven’t already done so, please rate your answer above. Or, you can reply to me using the box below.
You can use a fine mesh snake fence along the dock and gangway to keep snakes off of your boat... but given the food rich marine environment for snakes along the water, and the miles of adjacent water way, you will not be getting rid of them in the dock and shore area other than to eliminate their resting places such as shrubbery and grass etc.You can try some of the snake repellents found ideally at local garden shop that will carry what product they have any luck with on the local species of snakes... best is a mix if the urine of snake predators such as mongoose and mountain lion..but still it does not get great reviews.... more common is ground up moth balls (naphthalene) and sulfur.Snake traps are very marginally effective, but not on a water way with high numbers of snakes migrating constantly to fill any empty spaces.If you got together with the neighbors and went to the city animal pound and picked up 4 or 5 of the more feral type larger cats, alley cat types... took them to the boat dock area set them out with a few plates of cat food and water... the cats would stay in the area, and hunt snakes. One cat wouldn't help much, but 5 or 6 alley cats would... then just let them live outside in few small cat houses you can set up... they will leave their urine, which snakes mistake for bob cat... the combination along with clearing tall grass etc.. would likely cut the snake population down quite a bit. Feed them a small plate of cat food every day..that will keep them around.Here is an article on the subject, but with no easy cure, but will find useful information in it.http://www.justbelowthesurface.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74:do-snake-repellents-work&catid=43:farm-wildlife&Itemid=61
Hello again, our company is having issues with its rating system... and have programmed the 'helped a little' rating to be a negative on my record.If you would like to upgrade that to one of the positive ratings and if you feel I helped at all, please do so, that would help me on this end a lot.Thanks!