{"id":817,"date":"2020-07-10T19:19:58","date_gmt":"2020-07-11T02:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/?p=817"},"modified":"2020-07-10T19:32:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T02:32:13","slug":"releasing-kingsnakes-to-control-rattlesnakes-is-not-a-good-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/arizona-snakes\/releasing-kingsnakes-to-control-rattlesnakes-is-not-a-good-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Releasing kingsnakes to control rattlesnakes is not a good idea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Releasing kingsnakes to control rattlesnakes is not a good idea\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zT4C2RPnYik?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><figcaption>Here&#8217;s the video version of this post is that&#8217;s your thing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A common request from homeowners and something I see people comment about quite often is the idea of capturing, buying, or importing kingsnakes and gophersnakes to release in the yard as a means to control rattlesnakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kingsnakes, as you may be aware, are famous for making meals of venomous rattlesnakes.<\/strong> They completely harmless (even to kids and dogs) and even nice to look at. Because of their rattlesnake-eating preferences, many homeowners are more than happy to see a kingsnake cruising through the yard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So why wait for nature to bring the kings to your yard? Can&#8217;t you just buy one at the pet store and let it go? How about someone in town who&#8217;s caught a wild one and does&#8217;t want it? Why not bring in a bunch of them to release and then never see a rattlesnake again? Unfortunately, it&#8217;s a lot more complicated than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s increasingly common to see requests like this on Facebook and Nextdoor, where communities of rattlesnake-averse homeowners compare snake experiences. &#8220;You don&#8217;t want that kingsnake? Bring it to my yard!&#8221;. There are also suggestions (and admissions) of buying kingsnakes from the petstore to release. Please, never do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Releasing kingsnakes into your yard is not a good idea and almost certainly will not help your rattlesnake issues. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Bubble burst: if your yard has sufficient food sources and resources to support a kingsnake, you already have one. The population and distribution of kingsnakes (and other snakes) is a complicated balance of predator and prey, intraspecies dynamics. <strong>It&#8217;s like pouring water onto a flat surface expecting it to pile up; the kingsnake you release will almost certainly just wander off, not to be seen again. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have rattlesnakes in the yard, you also have kingsnakes already hunting them. You may not see them very often, but moving around unseen is kind of a snakes&#8217; thing. You could release as many kingsnakes into the yard as you want. If there isn&#8217;t sufficient food for them, they&#8217;re out! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Worse, unless you live in the same area as it&#8217;s used to so that it can resume its life, your new pest control idea will probably die out there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Even worse than that<\/em>, if you&#8217;re bringing kingsnakes in from other areas, you run the risk of spreading parasites and disease to the existing group of kings \u2014 your efforts to have <em>more<\/em> kingsnakes have a chance to make you have <em>no<\/em> kingsnakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-diamondback-rattlesnake-1024x613.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-diamondback-rattlesnake-1024x613.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-diamondback-rattlesnake-800x479.jpg 800w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-diamondback-rattlesnake-768x460.jpg 768w, https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/western-diamondback-rattlesnake.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Having other snakes in the yard is the best way to attract kingsnakes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What can you do to get more kingsnakes in the yard?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There is one way \ud83d\ude42 but you&#8217;re not going to like it. Get more rattlesnakes! Really though, prey opportunities are the best way to attract any snake to the yard. Unfortunately, you can&#8217;t really do that without also attracting the snakes you don&#8217;t want around, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems the idea of introducing kingsnakes to your yard to keep rattlesnakes away just isn&#8217;t as helpful as it may seem. Just stick to the basics of <a href=\"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/keep-snakes-away\/how-to-keep-snakes-away-from-your-home-the-ultimate-guide\/\">keeping snakes out of the yard<\/a> and if a kingsnake shows up to help, that&#8217;s great! But she doesn&#8217;t need any help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This goes for Gophersnakes and Bullsnakes too. These snakes, by the way, don&#8217;t actually eat rattlesnakes like the saying goes &#8230; but that&#8217;s for another article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common request from homeowners and something I see people comment about quite often is the idea of capturing, buying, or importing kingsnakes and gophersnakes to release in the yard as a means to control rattlesnakes. Kingsnakes, as you may be aware, are famous for making meals of venomous rattlesnakes. They completely harmless (even to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":820,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-keep-snakes-away","category-arizona-snakes","category-science-and-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":823,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817\/revisions\/823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rattlesnakesolutions.com\/snakeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}