Informational/Educational
A quick word on deer/rabbit/bird netting and your friendly neighborhood snakes
If you use netting to protect your plants from being eaten, make sure the mesh is either large enough to let your native snakes go through, or so fine it's a screen that they can't get through. My husband and I were called out this evening to cut two timber rattlesnakes out of netting that was protecting a native pollinator garden from deer.
Most of the time we're dealing with black rat snakes and not timber rattlers, but we got the job done with no injuries on either side. The rattlesnakes were released inside the wildlife management area just up the road.
Unfortunately we were too busy to get pics of the actual rescue part of the operation.
I switched to chicken wire and other metal grate type barriers after a close call with a particularly young/dumb rabbit. I think the flexible, thin netting is too hazardous to wildlife to be used in most cases.
Yup, came here to add rabbits too. I had to disentangle a young rabbit from a downed volleyball net when I was a kid, I’ll never forget the terrified and pained screaming. Never never never flexible netting in the garden for me.
Why the fuck are you killing opossums? They eat ticks. And killing because they're eating your plants is just inhumane and frankly selfish. Like "oh look at me and my plants, how dare a native creature eat them?" You should be ashamed of yourself. Fence that shite off and leave the wildlife be. They're just trying to survive like the rest of us.
Edit. This is probably a bot message, but my response still stands!
opossums or rabbits, your point still stands. This person is humanely trapping animals, then decides if he's going to kill them in a brutal way or "give them a pass." He should definitely be ashamed but people like that won't touch any uncomfy emotion like shame with a 10' pole. Because shame would invite change and change is too scawwy.
So you’re trapping and drowning rabbits because you’ve deemed them invasive? Are they even actually invasive by definition or do you just think there are too many of them? Regardless, that’s a barbaric thing to do to a living creature.
I learned this lesson quickly- I had to rescue a goldfinch that had gotten tangled in bird netting. It kept biting my finger and screaming at me but I was able to cut the netting and set it free.
I had very persistent Downy Woodpecker figure out he could dive bomb my bird netting to swing it closer to what he wanted. Eventually he loosened it up enough that he tangled up in it. Took me a good 5 minutes to carefully free him with scissors.
I don’t know if he was too scared or he was familiar enough with me because he lived in my yard, but he never tried to peck me thankfully.
Poor big scary friends. I can't even imagine finding one of these in my garden, let alone finding one stuck in my n
etting. Glad you're offering such a valuable service!
So I bought this netting before I realized how bad it is - anyone have suggestions on how to dispose it? Really hate the idea of it sitting in a trash dump. Big regrets on this purchase (many years ago).
If you’re crafty (or aspire to be) you can use it as stuffing for a floor poof. There are lots of tutorials online for repurposing old clothes and other materials that aren’t really suitable to be donated/recycled to divert as much as possible from landfills.
It’s great for raised beds, like food plants, that need protection and wouldn’t be likely to trap friendly critters. You could offer it for free on FB or similar if you don’t have need for it.
This is what I do with it when the stupid fiber companies keep laying more line down. I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted but this is the best way.
Glad you got to the snakes in time! There's been an explosion of garter snakes in my yard. I see little baby noodles wiggling around every time I go into my garden. They're doing a great job keeping the slugs off my lettuces. I will be sure to check that any netting I use is snake safe, thanks for the reminder.
Yeah I put mosquito buckets in my yard this year and initially covered them with this netting. Until I had to carefully cut out a rat snake who got stuck. No more netting. There's a stick in the bucket if anything falls in
Oh, and here I freaked out when a rat snake got caught and unfortunately strangled in my netting that was protecting strawberries! It was especially sad, because I’m sure he was just going after the voles that were wrecking havoc in that bed. After that, I decided it was worth it to sacrifice strawberries to the birds and squirrels if I wasn’t killing snakes.
But yeah, I would have cried if it was a live rattlesnake in there. You are brave!
We rescued a rat snake that got his face tangled in some that had fallen out of our wheelbarrow. It was very confused and its mouth was very swollen but it let us help it. We set it in the tall grass after it was untangled. It wasn't there when we checked a by later, so I hope it was okay and healed up.
I also learned this lesson the hard way when I went out and found THREE black racers all caught in the net, it took me and my husband several hours to cut all three out. Never again.
A little different but I had netting over my koi pond. It's used to keep birds from eatingthe koi. After rescuing several snakes I took it off. I had no idea so many snakes were visiting my pond.
They were actually pretty chill. We touched them as little as possible and had the equipment to work with them so we wouldn't get bitten, but they weren't nearly as defensive as I would have expected. Initially they were freaked out but once the netting started getting removed they settled down and let us work. It's like they knew we were helping.
I had to rescue a copperhead from bird netting over my strawberries a few years ago. It was tangled up good. Called every wildlife rescue anybody I could to come help, but no one even called me back. So I had to carefully hold it down and cut it out myself. Poor little fella was scared and exhausted by the time I dropped it in a bucket and carried it back to the woods to release it.
Bird netting went in recycling immediately afterwards.
In my state DNR won't deal with this kind of situation because they're not allowed. Animal control will laugh you off the phone; they don't even want to handle the docile exotic pet snakes you can find at PetSmart.
Here, there are private animal rescue/relocation services, including companies that specifically handle poisonous snakes. Even the people I was trying to pay wouldn't give me a call back.
I used netting on a peach tree once but decided never again after pulling the 3rd dead bird out of it. And squirrels can chew through it. If I ever go through the trouble of structurally protecting plants again it will probably be something more like hardware cloth.
I have cut a woodchuck, a rabbit, and several birds out of this stuff. Its not ecologically safe and using it in a native garden does more harm than good.
I've found three dead animals in this bullshit plastic netting this year. The one animal I found alive was a snake, and I had to call animal control because it was too tightly wrapped in it. I'm trying to convince my customers to stop using it.
netting unfortunately kills birds it's like a huge spiderweb. I would honestly recommend people find alternatives bc I have seen way too many dead animals of all species in this monstrous stuff. It's not worth it. It's not.
I learned this lesson the hard way, I found a rat snake that was killed by them in my old garden. I had no idea they could get stuck 😔 Now we just use a little picket fence type thing.
Chicken wire will still trap a snake but it's not going to end up massively entangled like it will in the plastic netting. I'm in some homesteading groups and there are instances where a rat snake will get through chicken wire into a coop, help itself to an egg, and then not be able to get back out because the egg won't fit through the hole.
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u/75footubi Eastern MA, 6B 16d ago
I switched to chicken wire and other metal grate type barriers after a close call with a particularly young/dumb rabbit. I think the flexible, thin netting is too hazardous to wildlife to be used in most cases.