Grrrrrr!!! Gophers...

[897tgigvib]

Good dog!

What this world needs is a breed of dog specifically bred to GITGOPHERS!

Abyssinian cats are the best breed of cat for it. Even a cat with only one great great great grandparent that was only part Abyssinian can be a GOPHERGITTER.

12 species of Gopher in North America, and they are each different. In addition to those 12 species of True Gophers, there are several species of GROUND SQUIRRELS that are called Gophers incorrectly, but they do similar damage. Then there are Woodchucks and Groundchucks, Badgers, Wolverines, Moles, Voles, some Rats, and others that tunnel around... GRRR!

 

[RickF]

We've successfully taken out a gopher Herd with a Black Hole gopher trap which looks like one of these


They work great but take a bit of patience to set properly.. However, once we put one in an active tunnel/hole, it ALWAYS was sprung the next morning. We took out at least 6 with this trap alone.. I had tried gas, water, etc.. In our area, gophers dig incredibly deep holes.. I put a hose down one hole that was nearly vertical and turned the water on.. It ran and ran and ran -- probably put 25+ gallons down that hole before I stopped for fear of flooding China on the other end..

Anyway, this was the only tool that worked for us.. All of the gophers that were caught were dead except one.. That one was drowned once I found him/her..

 

[digitS']

As Marshall says, we are talking about more than one critter here: pocket gophers stay underground for the most part and burrow around looking for food. You may have had them in a bed of veggies, eating the roots and maybe even pulling the entire plant underground to feast on. They also show up on people's lawns but we have to be careful about confusing them with moles. Anyway, to trap pocket gophers I think you will have to use an underground, gopher trap - or, "other means."

Pocket Gophers (click) As Wikipedia says:

"These are the 'true' gophers, though several ground squirrels of the family Sciuridae are often called gophers as well."

So, then there are ground squirrels that spend much of their time in burrows but come up to feed - scurrying around, climbing over, burrowing under. You may be able to deal with these above ground - or, your dog can. I'd use some caution here since these things can carry disease.

Ground Squirrels (click) As Wikipedia says:

"The term is most often used for the medium-sized ground squirrels, as the larger ones are more commonly known as marmots (genus Marmota) or prairie dogs, while the smaller and less bushy-tailed ground squirrels tend to be known as chipmunks."

Gardeners may well want to include chipmunks and others in the "Marmot tribe" as garden pests. By the way, ground hogs are marmots.

Steve

 

[digitS']

If DesertLady is "seeing the pest" and thinking of sprinkling black pepper as a deterrent - I think she is talking about ground squirrels.

What I have done with ground squirrels is fairly simple. And, they will eat EVERYTHING anywhere close to their burrows so having them as a neighbor to your garden just won't work. I have taken several rocks just a little larger than the burrow entrance, and a short piece of wood, and a sledgehammer.

Blocking the entrance with the rocks, driving them a couple feet underground has worked a number of times for me. I just search out every burrow that I can find and drive several rocks into it. Maybe they die down there, maybe they dig out & move - I don't know.

Marmots (ground hogs) that live around here make their burrows in rocks! That's a problem - it is hard to drive a rock into a crack in a rock, under a rock ledge . . . while clinging to a rockface of a cliff so as not to fall in the river . . . Okay, I haven't gone quite that far . No, instead I went to get my 22. Marmots are a fairly large target. There is a "Marmot Memorial Planter" in my backyard.

Chipmunks I've accidentally drowned in a tub of water. I've learned that some gardeners set things like that up with that intention.

Steve

 

[catjac1975]

We used beef blood from a slaughterhouse and it did the trick for a while but was not cheap. Same with coyote urine. Both are deterrents. Poison has been the most effective.