Voles/Moles a heavy burden

Janderso

Janderso

Jeff Anderson
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Mar 26, 2018
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We live in farm country with outstanding top soil. I can take a shovel, turn over some dirt and pick out half a dozen worms. Great when going fishing.

We have a very large community of voles and moles.

The darn voles have eaten the roots off several plants. It's kind of strange when you walk out into your yard one morning and see a healthy plant lying on it's side with no roots supporting it to the earth.

My wife planted over 100 bulbs a couple years ago, none came up this year!!

I've tried the poison pellets and worms, I even tried those expensive noise makers. Doesn't seem to make a difference.
I guess we just need to buy plants that don't taste good.

Any thoughts?
 

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Two words: Cinch traps
You sure they're not gophers? I didn't think we had voles in Calif
 
markba633csi said:
Two words: Cinch traps
You sure they're not gophers? I didn't think we had voles in Calif
Click to expand...
Gophers leave the large mounds though right?
No mounds here. Just tunnels barely under the surface. Bastaards
 
We have a couple of outdoor cats that limit the number in our area. Otherwise the only other suggestion is to investigate insect control. Here, japanese beetle grubs will bring large numbers of burrowing critters.
 
Voles can be quite a problem. I live in suburbia ( 8^( ) and occasionally have some issues. They do not reliably take baits -- regardless of claims by companies making such products.
 
I had a vole problem a few years ago, I came across a method that worked well. Find a hole that looks active, take two mouse snap traps and place one on each side of the hole and put a narrow box over it to force them to go over the traps. I needed to put long nails in the snap traps to keep them in place, but I ended up getting a lot of voles that year and haven't had much of a problem since. I don't like poisoning them since other animals could then eat them, so can't make any recommendations for baits.
 
Plant in stainless mesh containers. I had moles in my yard that worked their way around my raised beds but never made it in due to the chicken wire I had at the bottoms.

Those little guys are part of the healthy soil environment and if you poison them you’ll also be poisoning the owls that feed on them.

Bonus points, you get to make custom stainless mesh baskets in your shop. :grin:

John
 
Like this.

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