Last Updated on January 25, 2023
Snakes love to live in a den or safe place. They also like living in shady places and sometimes sunny places to keep their cold blood warm. Typically, the backyard is a safe spot for them as there is plenty of food and good shelter. They may enter occasionally into the pit of your in-ground trampoline enclosed by a retaining wall. The condition worsens when you found snakes on the trampoline mat.
Most of the snakes aren’t venomous but your kids get horrified seeing them. So, you don’t want to allow snakes in our backyard. That’s why we plan to talk about a crucial topic, how to avoid in-ground trampoline snakes in the pit. If you are facing such snake problems with your sunken trampolines, then this article is suitable for you. Let’s find out the details!
Making Your In-Ground Trampoline Snake-Proof
To make your backyard snakes-free, you need to take the prevention techniques that will keep them away from invading your in-ground trampolines. Before going to the prevention techniques, we’ll talk about the signs that prove there are snakes in your backyard.
Table of Contents
Identifying Snakes in Your Backyard
Maybe you’ve seen snakes in your backyard. But sometimes you mightn’t see snakes but there are a few ways by which you can recognize there are snakes in your backyard. A few of them are:
Snake Skin
If you see a snake’s scaly skin in the backyard, make sure there are snakes very close to you. With the growth of snakes, they change the old layer of their skins once a month.
Feces
Another important way of understanding a snake’s existence near you is its feces. Like all other animals, snakes also excrete waste as feces. They eat insects and small mammals such as rats and small reptiles. Their feces resembles bird feces but includes animal bones or fur.
Snake Tracks
Snakes don’t have any footprint, but their distinguishable trail tells there are snakes around you. Winding trails on dust or dirt are a good indication to realize snakes’ presence.
Tips for Preventing In-Ground Trampoline Snakes
There are many ways for making your backyard as well as in-ground trampolines snake-proof. Below, we’ll explain a few methods.
Keep Your Backyard Tidy
First of all, you need to keep the garden neat and clean especially to remove the snakes’ hiding spots. A few such spots are clutter, lawn, shrubbery, etc. It’s a good practice to remove stacks of wood, leaves, or piles of mulch from the backyard. You can use crushed stones, rather than mulch.
Don’t allow grass to become taller. Always cut and shape them very small using the lawnmower as it’s a snake’s hiding spot. You can get one easily from the local stores or from online like playing online trampoline games. You can also try these models.
If you need plants, then it’s ideally recommended to keep taller ones.
It’s also recommended to remove all dirt piles or any other hiding spots. If there are holes in the ground fill them to avoid snakes’ hideouts. To easily remove the dirt piles and find out holes, you can use blowers. They are handy and help you out on different occasions.
Destroy Snake’s Food Source
If snakes choose your backyard as a good food spot, then you need to destroy their food sources. Because snakes make their den where both shelter and foods are available. You need to focus on driving these rodents and pests. The snakes will automatically go outside from your trampoline pit.
You can use chemicals or natural repellents to kill these pests that attract the snakes. For convenience, we will suggest you the following ones,
Install Snake-Proof Fence
It’s also necessary to block all the entering roots of snakes. This fencing isn’t fully effective to prevent all types of snakes, but it works fine for most of them. A fine wire mesh fence is a handy option in this regard. Snakes can slither up vertically, so angle the fence outwards to prevent snakes from entering.
If your backyard is very large and you are unable to install fencing fully, then at least use the fence in the most used areas. You can also use a net in the in-ground trampoline water removal drain so that no snake can enter under the trampoline. It will be easy for a small yard.
Vibrations
You can use vibration to scare them. Run lawnmower where you are thinking snakes can hide, that makes them scary and they go away. This is just a temporary method. But don’t run over the lawnmower to the snake.
Call Pets
You can attract the dog or cat to find out the snakes. They know where the snakes might be hidden. The snakes get frightened by the dog’s call. Even snakes usually don’t enter the area if they realize there are cats or dogs.
Snake Traps
Whether you should use a snake trap or not is a disputable topic. Few experts say you can use snake traps to make your backyard snake-free. This trap works well if there are lots of reptiles such as mice and rats. The glue trap easily catches snakes and other reptiles.
The negative side of using snake traps is that you may unwillingly kill helpful animals in your backyard. To avoid that incident, you can try some alternative traps. Here is one for you,
Using Repellents
If the above-discussed methods don’t work, then you can go for extreme actions. You can use snake repellents such as sulfur, carbolic acid, mothball, and other commercial repellents. But we don’t recommend using these chemical repellents frequently.
There are some natural repellents also that can be used to get rid of snakes. For instance, lemongrass, oil, onion, garlic, etc. Cinnamon, cedarwood, and clove oils are helpful to repel snakes. Or you can try the following options,
It is highly recommended to plant lemongrass, onion, and garlic in the backyard if you are facing snake problems. The citrus scent of lemongrass and the pungent odor of garlic and onion can disorient and repel snakes easily from your backyard.
Call A Pro
When all the other ways failed, you need to call a professional snake catcher especially if you realize the snake is poisonous. They can easily help you to keep away the snakes.
Final Words
At last, we want to tell you that if you bounce on the trampoline regularly, then the chance of snakes coming near the trampoline will decline heavily. Yet, they might enter under the in-ground trampoline mat. If this occurs don’t overlook it, the snake might be venomous.
Hopefully, you can now handle such situations as you know all about how to avoid in-ground trampoline snakes in the pit. Now apply these methods and make your in-ground trampoline snake-proof. So, your kids are now safe to play in the in-ground trampoline!
Meet Gracie, a passionate trampoline enthusiast and dedicated trampoline instructor. As a sports student, Gracie’s knowledge of trampolining equipment is second to none. When she’s not hitting the books, you can find her bouncing high at her local trampoline club, sharing her love for the sport with children as their trusted coach.
Gracie’s articles are packed with valuable insights and tips to help you master the art of trampoline jumping.