General Gardening

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Digger — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:37:44 GMT

I wonder why? but it's like slugs and snails carrying lungworm ? of foxes with hookworm etc... I suppose it's a tiny risk to get salmonella from them if you touch them a lot. OH used to keep snakes ribbon snakes and corn snakes way before we met though, I've seen some really nice looking snakes at the pet shop but they're a bit scary and I don't like seeing them in little tanks with not much room to wiggle around .

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

sue1002 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:34:30 GMT

Sorry Miranda but I can't resist this - could it be that they might have eaten an uncooked egg?

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

miranda — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:41:04 GMT

I bet you 10p there are eggs in the compost, digger. Not that I can really dig it all up to find out, but I reckon there must be some in there for the snakes to have made burrows.

Didn't know about the salmonella thing. Looked it up and found that there is a chance of any snake carrying it. Why?

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Digger — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:29:41 GMT

Yes good website you found Miranda, maybe you will have eggs in your compost.

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

seedsgrowing — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:39:06 GMT

Love the pictures! I envy you having the snakes, Rosa. We've got two large compost bins and we keep hoping our two ponds will be an encouragement, but no luck so far.

Just to say, re handling grass-snakes, that the evil-smelling substance they put out if disturbed by their handling is absolutely loaded with salmonella - so very thorough hand-cleaning is always needed after handling them at all. More info about grass snakes (and a lot of other wildlife...) here.

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Susiq — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:04:42 GMT

What an amazing pic Miranda - just shows how clever all kinds of animals can be hey! Must admit I love our toads too, more than I would snakes!

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

miranda — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:00:36 GMT

There are some very good grass snake pictures here, including one of a snake playing dead and another of some snake eggs found in a muck heap.

Had a message from my friend who told me that any eggs should hatch next month and the young snakes will then make their way to the pond nearby. He said that the adult snakes might not hibernate in the compost but instead find rabbit holes or tree roots to sleep under. Guess they prefer it a bit cooler for hibernating?

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

miranda — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:48:01 GMT

There is a picture here, digger: http://www.photographersdirect.com/buyers/stockphoto.asp?imageid=1865708 - this is a good one as it's quite close up. You could buy a copy and keep it forever

I like frogs much better than snakes, to be honest with you.

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Digger — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:24:14 GMT

Wow have you got a picture of one pretending to be dead Miranda? Today at the lottie I saw a massive gigantic frog, one of the biggest I've ever seen. I didn't have my camera though! it went under the raspberry bushes in the corner. Today is very warm and cloudy, but it's okay

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

miranda — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:14:49 GMT

What fine snakes, Rosa. They look nice and fat, don't they.

Apparently they will bite if mishandled - this happened to a friend of mine when he was a boy. I've seen pictures of grass snakes pretending to be dead - they lay on their backs with their tongues hanging out.

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Rosa — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:59:26 GMT

Normal 0

Glad you liked the pics, Digger. Alas, I think I might be in a bit of trouble if I tried air rifle or catapult, tempting though the thought is (squirrels too, LOL). Also, there are so many of them that I just wouldn’t have enough time.

I’m not sure how many and, no, I don’t feed them – they manage fine themselves.

They are perfectly harmless to humans, though if you pick them up they exude a very unpleasant smelling substance and yes, they do flick their tongues out – it’s their way of testing to see what is about – sort of sniffing.

Now I would really love to see live badgers in the wild. The only ones I ever see are in the form of hearth rugs on the by-pass…[:'(]

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Digger — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:10:31 GMT

Wow Rosa you are so so very lucky to have those snakes!!!!!!!!!!!! wow they are brilliant and even OH thinks they are aswell, can you not deter the horrible magpies with a catapult or an air rifle? How many snakes live in your garden? are they friendly to humans? do they stick their tongues out and hisssssssss? I wish we had some wild snakes here but it might be too cold or something here. Do you send food out for them? the one in the picture is a splendid snake I'll bet it can swim fast. thanks for posting these pictures they are well good. We have no snakes but down at the back of OH's grazing field we have a badgers sett filled with badgers, but we stay away from it so that we don't disturb them, at night they even come to the stables and go into the nice paddocks and scratch the grass up for worms and we can tell when they've been in the muck heap for worms because they throw muck all over the place!!! I wish we had snakes though

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Rosa — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 20:49:17 GMT

We have grass snakes in our compost heap too but I think they move out into the garden when hatched - I don't usually come across adults in the heap.

The one in the pics is about 2' 6" and regulary swims round the pond.

Sadly the magpies - NOT my favourite birds - take the young snakes and slow worms too. I've even once see one take a bat it disturbed from a roost.

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

miranda — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:18:17 GMT

Thanks, Phot's.

I suppose we might be able to get some compost in September then...

Re: Grass snakes in the compost

Phot's-Moll — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:08:48 GMT

There's some info here -

http://www.wildlifebritain.com/thegrasssnake.php