You don't have any snakes around your martins?

[Whitlock]

LOL - No, I NEVER see any snakes around MY house!

That is what my wife and I said LAST year. However, we got curious why several of our compartments stopped getting visited, and we started to get a rash of "jumpers". When we finally decided to lower the house, we found an 18" rat snake living in one of the compartments!

Snake = dispatched. I'm sorry, my wife agrees that they do serve a function. But since THIS one had found the house, (and the way up there) he had to go.

This year, baffle and netting added. And we are more determined to lower the house for ANY suspicious reason at all! (We were kinda passive last year --- not so much this year.)

After the snake incident, we still fledged 10. No snakes??? LOL, yeh, sure. Keep telling yourself that! Not unless you also happen to raise mongoose's. (Mongeese?)

Stephen Whitlock
2nd year landlord

[Craig Dyer]

I used to live adjacent to the Trinity River bottoms. I had a thriving martin colony. Rat snakes were abundant. I frequently discovered them in my yard even during the daytime. Their skin sheds were also evidence of their presence. In seven years not once did a snake defeat the metal predator guards that I use (baffles/cylinders purchased through the PMCA website). Not to say that it can't happen. I'm sure others will testify that it has. Rat snakes also prey upon rats & mice. I have battled rodent infestation in every home I have lived in. Rodents pose a real problem, especially when allowed to multiply. I wish more "snake knowledgeable" Forum landlords would emphasize the benefit of humanely freeing & relocating snakes trapped by plastic netting.

[Thurman Seber~TN]

Well, I never intended for my post to become a pro snake or anti snake debate. I guess I would end my post by saying around my martins I am definitely anti snake. Having said that, it is a free country.. still barely perhaps.. so if you don't wish to harm snakes.. then by all means don't harm them. But for those of us who do kill them please give us the freedom to make the same decision. Perhaps a good "free the snakes" post would be in order

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

The electric fence charger solves all the problems. No snakes caught in the netting, and no snakes harmed, no snakes can get past that charger wire.

Personally, I don't want them at our house. My wife and I don't like them.
And we have so many nesting birds that lose their eggs and babies when we allow the snakes to stay here. Since this is a birding forum, I want to protect the other birds also, not just the martins or the snakes. We had many nests destroyed by snakes, there are enough snakes around here, there is no shortage, and they are not endangered. We have the right to try to protect our birds. And I don't want to take them to some other place and have them be a pest at the new place.

[JL Murray]

I keep my eyes and garden hoe sharp!

Anyone that gets ticked about that is more than welcome to come here and catch them and take them to their house and let them go.

[DebA]

What I have learned from this post is I haven't even thought to check inside my new stove pipe guard before I unsnap! RobinIM I would race your hubby to the house! My house!

I will be putting netting above my guard just in case one breaches it. My hubby is a save the snakes kind of guy. Me? Home alone? Not sure I can cut free a live snake. I can waive guys in that might be driving by.

Deb

[Craig Dyer]

Some of you have been martin landlords for many years. I respect your opinions, and you certainly have the right to do what you wish with an unprotected species like the rat snake. Based on my comparatively limited experience (in my ninth year as a landlord), the threat the rat snake poses to purple martins is manageable and does not warrant the snake's destruction. In addition to rodents, the rat snake's diet also obviously consists of adult birds, their nestlings & eggs. Would this not also include the English house sparrow & European starling? Now I'll shut up & follow Dorn's example and also run for cover.

[Jeff Robinson]

Roll the dice or don't roll the dice .... For those who've not experienced it before, I have the EZ off guards installed - regarded by some as one of the best on the market. It will NOT stop a 5.5 foot rat snake, as I have experienced and lost 6 nestlings and the mother to. I too believe in the value of having snakes in my yard for rodents and such, but snakes do Not belong in my martin housing. It is very obvious when a snake is in one of the compartments - your martins will be fluttering all around the housing and acting VERY anxious - that is, IF that snake didn't already wipe out your entire colony before you got to it.

I choose the netting, and if just one snake entangles and kills itself in the netting, so be it. There are PLENTY more of the rat snake species to take it's place. At least my "protected" martins aren't harmed.

At some point, I will take the route mentioned by Emil and install the EZ Off guards manufactured for use with electric charger ...plus the charger too of course.

Jeff

[Siberman]

Buy some black bait stations at Tractor Supply and put them around the perimeters of your property . They use cubes made of rat poison and they lock so dogs or cats can't get to the bait .

Eliminate the food source and the snakes won't hang around.

[starling shooter]

Rat snakes (really Bird Snakes) since "rat' snakes are born to climb - what lives in trees...rats or birds??

As a biologist...can't really say something is 'good' or 'bad'...it just does what it does. Taking one down the road...I'm sure the wild turkye nest, quail nest, baby rabbits, all the other birds with eggs and young...I'm sure they really appreciate that.

One animal is a game animal, one isn't..why? Just us humans perception of 'good' and 'bad'.

Purple Martins began nesting about us humans for one reason and one reason ONLY. Nesting succes! Humans = lack of predators. All the predators (snakes, owls, hawks, possums, coons) went into the soup pots of the hunter gatherers. Now....we're saying some are good and some are bad. Just find the big picture complex sometimes.

[Siberman]

They're all game animals . It just depends on your dining preferences.