Hi Friend,

Here is today's Pond Q&A, with a question about some more 'un-invited dinner guests' -- Snakes!

But first -- I have some very bad news...

Apparently, the conference call company that was 'supposed' to record our Live Pond Q&A on Satruday, screwed up and starting recording at 2pm PST. The call was at 2pm EST.

I've used them in the past, with no trouble - but you know what Murphy said... As it is, we have no record of any of the 2 hour call, where I was grilled with over 120 different pond related questions, on a wide variety of different subjects.

So, those of you who made it -- thanks for joining us! For those of you didn't... you really missed out! We had hoped to have it up on the website for you to listen to at your convenience...

Anyway, on to the Q&A...

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Question>

Hello,

I'm new to your list but am really enjoying the great Q & A's.

I have other un-wanted dinner guests and so far from all the people I have talked to there seems like nothing I can do. My guests are garter snakes and have "lunched" on several of my friendly fish. This last summer we caught 15 (at different times) and removed them.

Is there a protective measure I can use to guard against them?

Thanks in advance,

Cliff Johnson

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Answer>

Hi Cliff,

Well snakes are a whole different animal to try and get rid of. They don't respond to most decoys, netting, electric fences or the like... so there's really not a whole that I know of that you can do. Of course, you could try getting some bigger rubber snakes - as most snakes are cannibalistic and will eat each other. Yep, it's true - I saw it happen on the Discovery channel just this past weekend.

Other than that, you're doing the best you can by removing and relocating them (assuming you are re-locating them). If any of our readers have any other suggestions, feel free to send them in...

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The last time we asked for help from all of you, we were overwhelmed with responses about how to get rid of fire ants. There were so many, that we posted many of the better ones on a whole new web page:

Click here to read what our other subscribers had to say about fire ants:
https://www.macarthurwatergardens.com/fireants.htm

Happy Pondkeeping!

Brett Fogle

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