Recent Gourds Maintenance

jasalva · Sat Jun 15, 2019 6:12 am

Brought down gourds yesterday to find two gourds, having 5 eggs each last week, now empty. We have Troyer gourds with tunnels. We use predator guards and deer netting. Then as we had the rack down and were recording nests and chicks (predator guard and netting off for the check), a rat snake climbed on the gourds in a split second. Racks have mowed lawn underneath. My husband immediately removed him, no damage! This never happened before. If you have a rack by water, please beware. Maybe this is what happened to eggs, but it is hard to believe the snake got past the guard and netting! Lesson: There will always be two of us working on downed gourds!

Brad Biddle · Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:34 am

Electric predator guard = problem solved

BillieJR · Sat Jun 15, 2019 5:25 pm

Yikes - snakes is one of my biggest fears!

flyin-lowe · Sun Jun 16, 2019 9:15 am

Can you post a picture of your predator guards? Rat snakes are excellent climbers and if the top of the guard is too low to the ground, or the snake netting is not puffed out enough they can get right past it. I have seen pictures of them climbing right past baffle type guards.

jasalva · Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:28 pm

Flyin-Lowe, Here is the picture that you requested.

jasalva · Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:52 pm

Tried adding a photo; it didn’t work

Emil Pampell-Tx · Thu Jun 20, 2019 5:32 am

Two things that always work: 1)4ft of pvc 2)electric fence charger hooked up to the poles.
As mentioned above, the predator guards are not reliable, and netting must be done correctly.

Conrad Baker · Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:09 am

jasalva wrote: ↑
Sat Jun 15, 2019 6:12 am
Brought down gourds yesterday to find two gourds, having 5 eggs each last week, now empty. We have Troyer gourds with tunnels. We use predator guards and deer netting. Then as we had the rack down and were recording nests and chicks (predator guard and netting off for the check), a rat snake climbed on the gourds in a split second. Racks have mowed lawn underneath. My husband immediately removed him, no damage! This never happened before. If you have a rack by water, please beware. Maybe this is what happened to eggs, but it is hard to believe the snake got past the guard and netting! Lesson: There will always be two of us working on downed gourds!

What size is the deer netting? I bought some netting at Home Depot used to prevent birds from getting at fruit trees. It came in two different sizes, I think 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch, and combined the two in different layers around the top of my 4 foot tall pvc predator guards. So far, so good.

Conrad Baker · Thu Jun 20, 2019 6:09 am

Deleted - Duplicate post

cary-nw-fla · Sat Jun 22, 2019 11:48 pm

I tried the netting, but still had some get through, and also caught several. Had snake issue every year until I installed the electric fence charger guard.

jasalva · Mon Jul 01, 2019 6:30 pm

Will find out about electric guard. Caught a snake today before it could do damage. The net caught it.

jasalva · Mon Jul 01, 2019 6:34 pm

I think the netting is1/2 inch. Sine the first attack, we have really doubled up on netting above and below predator guard. We had matins for about 6 years at our former house and never had a snake attack. This was a hard lesson. Last year there was a psycho starling this year snakes!

Spiderman · Tue Jul 02, 2019 6:13 am

I had a rat snake kill 7 Martins this year, 2adults and 5 Fledglings.

For a rat snake 5' in length, I think you will need to install 3/4" netting so his head can pass through the webbing and be snared. That is 3/4" across the webbing not measured diagonally.

I found some locally at Tractor Supply, not sure you if have those in the N.E.

jasalva · Tue Jul 02, 2019 11:33 am

Thank you, SpiderMan, will look for netting. We just may have that. The snakes head got caught in the netting. With birds, you are always learning. My new location (3 years) has brought lots of challenges! As I said before, I have 6 years experience at my previous location. We were on the water, with no snake experiences.