It seems that since the beginning of time mankind has been struggling to answer a reasonably straightforward question.
What is the best snake repellent?
As it turns out, there are lots of answers to that question and today we’ll share a handful of interesting and compelling natural snake repellent ideas that we recently found around the interwebs. By no means is this a comprehensive list but it does offer several ideas that you can deploy at your place.
We hope you’ll enjoy and check out a couple of these sites.
- The team over at The Wandering Herpetologist make a great point when it comes to crossing paths with snakes in your yard. Just leave them alone. In their words:
Remember it’s always safer for you and the snake if you don’t try to kill it. The snake will react negatively at an attempt to kill it (understandably) and it could potentially injury you. We want to see both human and snake survive any encounters.
It’s true, sometimes the simplest advice is the best. Of course, once the snake as slithered off, you can carefully go about implementing any number of snake deterrents, many of which they outline in the article.
- Sticking with the theme of simple and effective, Danielle over at The Rustic Elk advises that we plant Lemongrass to help us to keep snakes, mosquitoes, and ticks at bay. Further she shares that lemongrass has medicinal properties. Those are but a couple of the tips you’ll pick up over at this truly neat site.
- The team over at Blog.NurseryLive have another take on snake repelling plants. They recommend the variegated Mother-in-Law’s tongue. It seems that snakes don’t care for the look of these plants. Further they share a most interesting nugget when thinking about chemical vs. natural snake repellents. It seems that most chemical repellents are designed to target certain species of snakes while most natural or organic solutions are effective against all snakes.
I suppose that fact does swing both ways depending your objective, but it’s does underscore the idea that nature is pretty good at taking care of itself and sometimes all we need to do is play along.
- Kari at the Happy Coconut Travels Blog takes time away from her Costa Rican adventures to share about the wide range of particular poisonous snakes in her new community – in particular the highly excitable and venomous Fer-de-lance. She shares that the local workers rub crushed garlic on their boots and carry the remaining garlic clove in their pocket. Meanwhile, a dog or cat running free in the yard can help discourage snakes.
- Alicia over at EnkiVillage has a couple unique tips for helping us deter snakes both in and out or doors. Human hair and rags soaked in ammonia are effective at keeping snakes away. I imagine those would be especially effective in crawl spaces and basements. An aggressive outdoor technique is to use fox urine to run off snakes. Foxes hunt snakes so hints to their presence can serve as a snake deterrent.
Of course we took a turn at addressing this dilemma too and hope you’ll check out our guide for keeping snakes away.
Meanwhile, if you have a favorite natural snake repellent tip we hope you’ll share it in the comments below.
Great tips! I love the tip of leaving the snake alone and not killing it, snakes are an important part of the rainforest ecosystem in Costa Rica, where I live. I hiked to a waterfall recently and rubbed a crushed garlic clove all over my boots and legs (for snake repelling reasons too but more for mosquitos). I nearly stepped on a 6-foot pit viper and he struck at my leg twice but did not make contact…I like to think the garlic had something to do with that, so it really works 🙂 (you can read about my scary close-call on my blog at Happy Coconuts Travel Blog)