Bought a snake infested property in Southern Louisiana

[1168]

You’ve bought my childhood home, lol. They’re not as aggressive as people give them credit for, but I certainly wouldn’t want to sleep somewhere infested by them. I’d be more concerned for my dog than myself. Personally, I’d kill them on sight, and attempt to figure out their food source. Unfortunately I don’t have any genuinely good advice, so I’m throwing spaghetti at the wall below.

From the internet: “Cottonmouths are opportunistic feeders and are known to consume a variety of aquatic and terrestrial prey, including amphibians, lizards, snakes (including smaller cottonmouths), small turtles, baby alligators, mammals, birds, and especially fish.” Read “mammals” as rodents. I’d start there on eliminating their food source. Many of the small critters snakes eat grow up to be critters you can eat. Rabbits, nutria, frogs, fish. I don’t know how big your property is or what the non-snake critter situation is. Rats and mice should be eliminated. Since they are edible by snakes throughout their lifecycle, they are a very convenient source of food for land-going snakes.

I’d consider removing that mobile home. If its been abandoned for some time its probably not doing so well. Nature reclaims quickly down there.

Tame the brush and grass. As you kill the snakes, remember that they can bite you when dead. Juveniles are the most dangerous.

A university biologist or a pest control company (do they mess with snakes?) might have better advice than a gun forum. Two have emails hotlinked on this page: https://www.lsu.edu/mns/collections/herpetology.php Snake repellent exists also, but I have no idea if it works.

If you have neighbors nearby, don’t be a stranger. They may know something about this. Where are you from, anyway?

[Diamondback]

My friend's advice:
"Best advice I have is have a very big bonfire and bring lots of marshmallows with very long sticks...cottonmouths are aggressive and watch carefully for any attempted escapees. Shoot to kill then skin 'em and make belts and stuff. He might try contacting locally operating "pest" control. Won't likely be cheap but cheaper than the hospital stay for snakebite...if you live"

[GH41]

My advise is to sell the property if you can't get along with the snakes. You will never kill them all!

[Diamondback]

Addendum from my friend when I mentioned this shoulda been disclosed by owner or realtor before sale: "Sellers are required by law to disclose all the known bad crap in any property purchase with a mortgage of any kind backed by the fed. If he paid cash he's stuck with it all at his expense likely. Though he might find a friendly judge for a lawsuit to recover at least some cost of "cleanup"."

[titsonritz]

Black Mambas I think are the most angry aggressive snake in the world. They also can go 176 feet per second, 12 mph. They are scary nasty.

I would call in a napalm strike on the property, I really don't like snakes.

But at least they aren't in this country.

[Diamondback]

But at least they aren't in this country.

Don't say that too loud, next thing you know Captain Pedopants will declare them "economic migrants"...

[Watrdawg]

Call the local fire department and have them burn down the trailer for training purposes. they will do it for free. Then have the remains buried. Like others have said bush hog everything around and then mow grass etc and keep it short. Keep everything around the lake/pond or whatever as short as possible. You will always have snakes there so be prepared to kill them as needed.

[chuckman]

That sucks. You will have to get rid of any habitat. Lots of slash and burn, but your in Lower LA, so its a snake pit anyway. As far as the house, depends if you want to salvage it or not. If its a trailer you can get someone to move it out and then fire bomb any nests. If it is an elevated house, you could be screwed. Any holes in duct work will screw you, good luck getting a Heating and Air guy to crawl under it. I kind of had the same problem with copperheads, got to where I was killing 6+ a day in a very hot July. Cut and burned any habitat in a 100 yards. It helped, but I still killed some that wondered in the short grass where I could see them. You really have to keep the grass short, burn any habitat, and NEVER walk outside in flip flops. CCI shot works, but you have to have a gun that will cycle them. I went through a couple pistols until I found one that would cycle. My first thought was a J frame, but the shock broke all the capsules in the cylinders and the shot went every where and jammed it up. My USP 9 ended up being my every day carry while working outside. Now I know some one is going to say shotgun but one handing a zero turn with a shotgun on your lap is not really feasible. Shotgun was always handy, but the pistol was always on my hip. So do you run to the house/truck to get the shotgun and potentially lose track of the snake or do you just eliminate it then and there with a pistol.
Hope this helps.

A pistol with ratshot, something like a Taurus Judge. Best anti-snake gun I have found.

RE: mambas, we had one get away from a local collector within the past year. Never found it. Crazy how many exotic venomous snakes in my area with collectors. I am certain we're not the only area where this is happening.

On a deployment we had a Marine bit by a mamba. Got right sick, but he was OK in the end.

Locally the worse thing are copperheads. They are pretty prevalent. Down east we find water moccasins and worse, eastern diamondbacks (biggest venomous snake in the US). We're supposed to have coral snakes, but I have never seen one in NC outside of a museum or zoo.

[georgeib]

Burn it with fire, then nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure.

[Watrdawg]

I've never positively seen a Coral Snake here in NC either. I did see either a Coral or King Snake slide under a rock while turkey hunting a while back. Didn't try to go dig it up to see what it really was though. I also see a lot of Timber Rattlers. Not as big as Easterns but they can get fairly large also.