The Snake 'Habitat'

[OkeeteeMom]

Several months back, I was on a thread with a member who had an interest in what I call, The Snake Habitat. I think it was a thread about attracting wild snakes, but no matter how much I've searched I can't find it.

A n y w a y ......

• The fence is to keep out our Akita/Husky. We cut posts and buried them, then attached gardening fence.
• All the logs have woodscrews screwed into the tops for securing orange halves (or we fill them with jelly) and attract all kinds of Spring birds (mostly various Orioles and Western Tanagers).
• The tires hold containers of Goji Berries and assorted Wildflowers to attract more birds as well as bees and butterflies.
• That (currently unattractive) wooden 'T' holds suet's securely from our high winds. The bird's eat the suet and the crumbs hit the ground and the snakes get their opportunity from mice, and the circle of life!
• The charcoal rocks towards the bottom right is where our gray-water (laundry) can be diverted from the fruit trees.
• The large rock retaining wall (lower right corner) has many openings for snakes (and God knows what else!) to hide.

We see a fairly good amount of Garters and some quite large Bull/Gopher Snakes (which eat Rattle snakes). We also get some Road Runners (they come to eat the birds and look for Rattle Snakes)

While it's not in all it's Spring glory, it's at least out from beneath snow. If I can get some photos of it looking prettier before I move, I will.

The bottom pic is the snake habitat hoodlum that the fence keeps out.

Thanks for looking...

 

[knox]

Hope you get some great pics of snakes this summer!

 

[OkeeteeMom]

Thanks! I'm actually still updating my text, lol. I forgot some important stuff.
EDIT: Done now.

 

[Jessicat]

Thanks for including a picture of your dog so that I didn't have to be off topic and ask for you to post one!

S/he is absolutely GORGEOUS!!

Also, awesome pictures and great idea. Do you have photographs of animals you've seen out there, or do you guys just watch? I can understand if you don't. My dad has a hummingbird feeder set up, and I have never been able to get a decent shot of one. They are just so fast!

If you search Nanci's threads for her water garden (eik, I can't remember it's super special awesome name) and tort fort enclosures, you'll learn that water attracts a large spectrum of animals.

Other than that.. I don't have much to add, sorry! Perhaps if there was some way you could set up a wild mouse colony outside you'd find more snakes? I have no idea how you'd go about doing that though.. they're probably there anyway.

Good luck!

 

[Karoni]

Wow. I so envy you your natural backyard. I can't feed the birds because every time I try, an annoying pesky raccoon wrecks the feeders and eats all the food. I hate raccoons. If I put orange halves on my fence, I'm sure they'd be gone by morning....

 

[crotalis40741]

Great looking habitat! I wish you the best with taking pics. Please be sure to share them with us on here.

 

[rich333]

Awesome Pics!! Awesome Akita!! And of course..AWESOME backyard!! i think i could play there for days!!!

 

[crotalis40741]

Wow. I so envy you your natural backyard. I can't feed the birds because every time I try, an annoying pesky raccoon wrecks the feeders and eats all the food. I hate raccoons. If I put orange halves on my fence, I'm sure they'd be gone by morning....

You can put cayene in the bird food. Birds can't feel the heat from it but mammals can. It is used a lot in bird food to keep squirrels out.

 

[Irish Eyes (Mrs.Z)]

It's all wonderful, but I'll take your dog/wolf/whatever! What a beauty .

 

[MysticExotics]

Great habitat Tina!! (& your dog is gorgeous!) although the look seems to be saying "she *thinks* I cannot get in there..." LOL

 

[Karoni]

You can put cayene in the bird food. Birds can't feel the heat from it but mammals can. It is used a lot in bird food to keep squirrels out.

Thanks. I tried it. Tried the suet with it already mixed in, too. The raccoon ate it all up. Argh!!!

 

[OkeeteeMom]

Thanks Everyone!

...She is absolutely GORGEOUS!!...Do you have photographs of animals you've seen out there

Thanks Jessica! She's half Akita, half Husky. We rescued her in 2005. And about animal/wildlife pix...we HAD hundreds. When I came back from a recent out of state trip, the Mister had to do some computer work...he believes we lost them all. I still need to search for those (I'm most always optomistic). We had pix of every type of bird, squirrel, roadrunner, snake, weasel, tarantula, velvet ant and lizard imaginable. If I find them, I'll post for sure! I think I still have some hummingbird pix.

Great habitat Tina!! (& your dog is gorgeous!) although the look seems to be saying "she *thinks* I cannot get in there..." LOL

Looks like that! But I know her legs are too short and she's not a jumper...however I always keep an eye on her anyway!!! She's got on her 'chillin' in the shade with Mom face. Neither one of us old B's have any iota of heat tolerance...over 65F and we're panting, LOL.

 

[crotalis40741]

Thanks. I tried it. Tried the suet with it already mixed in, too. The raccoon ate it all up. Argh!!!

I am so sorry it didn't work. Must be a tough racoon. You could turn up the heat a bit.

 

[Karoni]

I am so sorry it didn't work. Must be a tough racoon. You could turn up the heat a bit.

Thanks. I thought about that too...but no matter the reassurances to the contrary, I worry that that much capsaicin can't be good for the birds.

I did briefly toy with the idea of feeding the raccoon ex-lax laden dog food (in hopes he would associate our back yard with not feeling good) but in the end I couldn't be cruel to him, even though he's a pest.

Sorry to hijack this thread with my woes...

 

[Jessicat]

And about animal/wildlife pix...we HAD hundreds. When I came back from a recent out of state trip, the Mister had to do some computer work...he believes we lost them all. I still need to search for those (I'm most always optomistic). We had pix of every type of bird, squirrel, roadrunner, snake, weasel, tarantula, velvet ant and lizard imaginable. If I find them, I'll post for sure! I think I still have some hummingbird pix.

Aww, that's too bad! I always back everything up when I'm having computer work done, but every once in awhile I'll forget to save something, and once I realize it's gone I'm devastated!

Good luck finding those pictures, if you ever do, I'd LOVE to see them posted! That's really cool that you were able to capture tarantulas and lizards. I can barley get pictures of the Tarantulas I own because they're in their burrows more often than not!

Perhaps this summer I'll have to spend some time at the folk's to try to capture some hummingbirds at work!

 

[OkeeteeMom]

We had a visitor today at the snake habitat...a Cooper's Hawk

 

[OkeeteeMom]

Found this little Garter in the snake habitat today...so cute!

 

[reptile65]

Found this little Garter in the snake habitat today...so cute!

Great looking garter! I have one just like it

 

[OkeeteeMom]

Part One...

So earlier today, we came home from breakfast and found this guy in the backyard (just outside a Gopher hole, hint-hint) near the snake habitat! He/she was gorgeous...and hissing, too. I'm guessing at least 3 feet long. Everything was cool (apart from the fact that it was covered in leftover shed and was missing a good portion of it's tail) until we saw the gash (and a 2nd older injury). The scales/skin were completely pulled away from what was clearly meat. It wasn't so fresh, though. There was no blood coming from it. So we took the Gopher Snake (with no hissing, striking or musking!) and cleaned it up with some peroxide solution...let it rest in a 10 gallon spare Viv with wet paper towels (hoping to remove some of that crappy shed), and gave it a fuzzy (which it wouldn't eat). We did our best and let it go in a safe place...via con Dios, Snakie!

 

[OkeeteeMom]

Part Two...

Part Two...