Hi, IronBelly. The simple answer to your question is feed an alligator and it will follow you home! In the situation I described above our Association's BOD asked me (at the time I was Chairman of the Grounds Committee) to urge this family not to feed alligators. They delighted in tossing meat scraps over the back fence to the 'gators. We were sitting on their back deck talking when this happened very quickly. Dog was gone in one gulp. 'Gator was becoming dangerous and had to be put down. Old-timers had told me these critters could climb but I never believed it until I saw it with my own eyes. I should have added to my first answer to this question that if the questioner lives on a snake 'highway' then building a raised deck platform would provide a damp, shady area; perfect snake habitat to lounge and live. Cottonmouths would be my first concern.

I would think that pennies and copper metal strips are not in the right state of a copper mixture to be effective. However, as this thread shows, we'll each try different things and if it works, stay with that. We won't totally get rid of them but we can reduce their population. For me, I worked on getting rid of snail habitats such as large pieces of wood, stone, etc around the yard. Then I used Natria snail bait, which is a cheaper version of Sluggo, around the plants and in some areas of the landscaping. Finally, for a few weeks of spring, I go out in the evenings and another 2-3 hours later, and manually pick up any snails I see. Those go into a bucket with some soapy water, which helps to prevent them from crawling out the bucket. By doing that, the later spring and summer months have a much reduced population of snails. I do this again in the fall to get rid of some more before the winter comes, where they will go into hiding and prepare the cycle all over again. On a side note, there are warnings about using copper-based products when cleaning algae in a fish tank or pond, so regardless of our own observations, there does seem to be enough concern about copper products, which when dissolved with water, that can kill snails or other mollusks in water.

singingcrk Angel. well frist one of my horses is Breeze he is in the picture above. He is also blind as a bat at the ripe age of 29. Thus the saying even a blind squirel can find a nut. Breeze shares his pasture with my garden or the other way around. I would only turn himout with a eye on him at all times, but would be out of eye sightwhen was turning the compost pile. That is normallywhen he would hit the goodies. Peas, spinach or what flavorful shallots I had growing. Did I tell you he ate my new gooseberry and current bushes to the ground. Now two things I posted a while ago was on posionous plants site, not a sole picked up on it. you just put in the search either dog or cat or horse or even human and it will pop up what ever is posionous to that animal. Now for horses a great place to even get a idea what they can eat is herbnhorse.com they sell bulk herbs by the lb that are dried, long long list btw. Many flower petals included. I have had horses for over 30 years and not a clue till ws and 2005 they liked tomatoes. I adore tomatoes and sort of went nutty planting way to many seeds. I traded or begged from any one that would trade with me for different tomato seeds. I did alot of research to find good yellow ones and traded for as many as I could. I knew it would work but had not a clue how well. I strongly belive horses loves carrot tops, have yet to see one carrot plant out of all the seeds I planted. See picture of spotted horse aboved, main weeder of carrots, peas and spinach from my property. My property is small and the blind horse has free reign over it. One of my horses will guard anything near his paddock, or eat it and loves to take walks with me to taste test the other tomatoes and found out he liks cosmos flowers /plant and only one type of cukes. I saved the seeds from the cukes he liked and will plant many more of those for him. I do plant alot of grass seeds for these horses and they get bales of hay each day to go with. Have not figured out to to give them some herbs but not whole pots of them yet. I may need to cage in part of my garden to keep one horse and the deer herd out. One day planted out the rest of my containers of ws'ed plants not yet out. Found one horse grazing among them as new treats just planted for him. OUT out of my garden. He hates to get wet so just sounded it by a sprinker hose. Evil grin. that worked to keep him out of my garden most of the summer. How to out fox a blind horse course 101. ML Here is a link that might be useful: Poisonous Plants look up link

New Iris foliage has been nibbled to ground level. First time for that but it's near deer path on their night travels. I had some Daff foliage eaten as it seems some varieties are susceptible and some aren't. Thought Crocus were safe. Started every other day repellant spraying last week as Tulip foliage is just up and first bit was eaten. Expect that, though. I haven't seen any rabbits out and about here yet but deer never go away and groundhogs "woke up" over 2 weeks ago. I use Shot-Gun Repels All by Bonide. Ingredient list says it's less than ONE TENTH percent "dried blood, whole egg solids and garlic" with the rest of the expensive bottle having to be inert liquid. Can make stronger brew of above commercial mix in blender. If not strained it'll clog your sprayer. Garlic juice and eggs without shells might be better choice to avoid clog. Link shows various "recipes"...I call this the "spray and pray" method! Here is a link that might be useful: Deer/Rabbit Repellant Homemade Recipes