How To Get Rid Of Gophers In Your Lawn

When In Doubt Call A Professional

If you try these methods and still find your lawn under siege by frustrating gophers, you can always call a professional. There are professional animal control and animal removal companies that will work with you and use enhanced methods to rid your lawn of gophers for good. Professionals cost a fair bit of money, have to work on their schedule, and might use methods that you find distasteful. But professionals are another surefire way to rid your lawn of gophers for good.

How To Keep Gophers Out Of Your Yard

Now that you know how to get rid of gophers, youll also want to take preventative measures to keep gophers away for good. Make your property less habitable by making your plants and vegetables harder to access. Place a protective barrier of wire or mesh around them and pick up any fruits or vegetables as soon as they fall to the ground. Reduce vegetation by trimming back bushes and try to pack down your soil as much as possible to make it harder for gophers to dig through.

Final Thoughts On Handling A Gopher Problem In Your Yard

A single gopher seems so insignificant. After all, its just a small, furry rodent. Anybody who has ever dealt with a gopher in their yard can tell you that its not a pleasant experience. Aside from destroying your plants and causing sinkholes in your yard, gophers can damage underground systems, like water lines and cables.

If you suspect you have a gopher burrowing under your lawn, take action immediately because they can cause significant damage in a short time.

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How To Prevent Gophers And Moles From Coming Back

After the gopher or mole is gone, its important to take a few steps to keep them from coming back. Heres are a few ideas that can help:

• Replace your plants with ones they dont like. Gophers wont eat salvia, mint, rosemary, or strawberries. Moles hate the smell of daffodils and marigolds.
• Change the way you garden. Build a raised garden bed and line it with mesh hardware cloth along the bottom and sides to prevent access to your plants from below.
• Create a barrier. Dig a 15 x 60-cm trench around your garden and fill it with rocks.
• Repellent. Continuing to spray animal-repellent products will simply repel critters from entering places they shouldnt get into, such as your yard.

Solar Powered Gopher Repellent

Do these solar powered gopher repellers really work? According to this customer review at Clean Air Gardening, they do.

Few months ago, I bought a couple of your sonic gopher chasers, out of sheer desperation, as I had tried everything else..from poisoning to shooting the critters and nothing worked. Nothing. These electronic sonic things did the trickalmost immediatelylike two days, and after that not a sign of themthe sonics are still in place, and chirping away every thirty seconds.they gonna stay there till they quit, then Im coming back for more. Love these things.

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Like I Mentioned Earlier These These Yard Destroying Varmints Do Not Like Loud Noises

That said.. you could take an old radio you have sitting in the garage and place it in a Ziploc bag and then turn up the noise near the entry and exit points of the mole’s tunnels.

This is a natural way to scare these critters off of your property. I would recommend playing Creed or Nickelback LOL.

Just make sure you dont turn it up too loud or else your neighbors will be upset too and then you got another problem on your hands.

What Damage Can Gophers Cause To Your Home And Yard

While the gophers mayhem on the golf course in the movie Caddyshack was exaggerated for comic effect, these pests can indeed cause significant damage that is expensive to repair. Gophers burrow into the ground, digging extensive tunnels that can damage lawns, vegetation, crops and possibly even the foundation of homes.

Suffice it to say, you should take action to remove a gopher at the first sign of its presence. However, its unlikely that youll see a gopher itself they prefer to stay underground and more likely, youll see the damage its already done.

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Do Coffee Grounds Keep Moles Away

Coffee grounds have an overpowering smell that deters moles, so place them in a few of the tunnels or mounds to drive them off. … The more coffee grounds you place on your garden, the more effective it will be. You’ll need to place coffee grounds daily in order to keep scent as strong as possible.

What Is The Best Gopher Bait

The best bait for gophers is fresh and succulent portions of vegetable roots and stems, or any part of their agricultural favorite plant, alfalfa. The gopher likes carrot sticks, celery sticks, apples, and peanut butter. Gophers are most active during the spring and summer months.

They are also active in the fall and winter months, when they hibernate in their burrows. Gophers can be found in all parts of the state, but the most common areas are along the Mississippi River and the Ohio River.

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Barn Owl Nesting Boxes

Another way to control gopher populations on your property is to construct barn owl nesting boxes.

This isnt a quick fix, and it wont eradicate the gophers on your property. It can, however, help control the population of gophers and other pests over time.

Pros: Natural, organic, beneficial for the ecosystem

Cons: Long-term solution, will not eradicate gophers

Myth Alert: Although some people will tell you that pet waste scares gophers off, theres no evidence to support this so dont spread your dogs droppings around.

How To Identify Moles

Moles are solitary, insect-eating animals that live underground and rarely come to the surface, usually only to find a mate. They burrow a foot deep into the soil, using their front paws to dig a network of underground tunnels.

How can you identify a mole? They are around seven inches long with pointed muzzles, tiny eyes and hairless snouts. Their eyes and ear canals are concealed by fur, and they don’t have external ears. Their forefeet are very large and broad with webbed toes, but their hind feet are narrow with slender claws.

In their natural environment or in large, open rural areas, moles do not cause significant damage. Its only when they make their way into your lawn and garden that they become a problem. Moles naturally aerate soil and eat the larvae of destructive insects. However, in your yard, they’ll also destroy plant roots, bulbs and grass. The tell-tale sign that you have a mole infestation is not seeing the mole itself, but the presence of small, volcano-shaped mounds and raised ridges of dirt in your yard.

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Household Remedies For Gophers

Household and DIY remedies to get rid of other pests often are effective, environmentally safe, and save quite a few bucks. Thats not the case with gophers, though.

According to the University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources Program, popular household remedies such as gopher purge, mothballs, castor bean, and garlic havent been shown to repel gophers from an area.

Vibrating stakes, ultrasonic devices, wind-powered pinwheels, and planting chewing gum or laxatives in burrows also are not recommended for gopher removal.

While some devices claim to frighten pocket gophers, these pests dont scare easily. Their resistance is likely due to their exposure to noise and vibration from sprinklers and lawnmowers.

How To Use Poisons

• Thoroughly read the instructions that come with any store-bought gopher or rodent poison bait.
• Prepare to handle the poison by wearing rubber or cloth gloves.
• Following the instructions, place a proper amount at the entrance to a gopher burrow.
• Most poisons are made of zinc phosphide or strychnine. Both will cause physiological and neurological reactions in gophers and other wildlife before they die, which is why they arent considered a humane option.
• Poisons are combined with a bait ingredient so that gophers are encouraged to eat them and die.
• Prevent your children or pets to come near the areas with poison while theyre in use.
• Monitor your yard to see if signs of gophers cease to occur. If not, reapply the poisons as necessary, according to the instructions.
• Since the gophers will die while theyre underground, you wont have to deal with the carcass. However, once you are sure that the gophers are dead, you should follow through with sealing up their burrows.

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Our Fifth Recommendation Could Be The Most Dangerous However If You Do Not Have Children Or Pets It Could The Most Effective Way Of Dealing With Moles

You may not know this… but the way to use pesticides to fight moles is to exterminate their food source…

Think about it.. When the grubs and other immature stages of lawn pest insects are in high numbers, moles will be attracted to your lawn.

There are three methods to use in ridding your lawn of moles:

To rid your property of the different pests these burrowing animals love to eat, treat the area with Talstar or Permethrin insecticides.

If your mole continues to tunnel , spray Whole Control Repellent on the areas where the mole is active. Moles do not like this product. The smell and feel of the active ingredient will force the mole to move on. Whole Control repels moles, voles, burrowing animals with all natural ingredients.

The Best Way Of Getting Rid Of Gophers Depends

Now that you know what not to try, what should you do? What do most people do? Every situation is different. When someone asks how to get rid of gophers, any of the following factors can affect the answer:

• The size of the problem area.
• The type or quality of plants growing there.
• The condition or function of the surrounding area.
• The presence of children or pets.
• Health or safety concerns.
• Restrictions of time, physical ability or money.
• Do you want to kill them?
• Do you want to just repel them?
• Do you prefer organic gopher control?
• Do you have easy access to a gopher control supply source?

Keep these questions in mind as you investigate the different ways to kill gophers, found in the next article in this series.

The best way for getting rid of gophers? It varies and changes. Choose the path that is necessary or practical… for you… at this time. You must be willing and able to follow the procedure you select, or it wont happen.

The essential action you can take is consistent attention to gopher control. Stay observant and respond soon when a new varmint shows up. That will provide you with successful results and cause the least amount of stress or bother.

What information will help you learn how to get rid of gophers? Your main choices will fall in the categories of killing gophers or repelling them. A third approach is to selectively protect certain plants. This is not so much how to get rid of gophers, but tolerating a limited coexistence.

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How To Prevent Roof Rats From Taking Over Your Attic

In keeping with this, its best to prevent roof rats from infesting your home in the first place. There are several steps you can take to help prevent roof rats from making a home on your roof.

• Seal holes or cracks of any size with silicone caulk
• Replace damaged shingles or flashing promptly
• Screen any vents on the roof to prevent rats from entering your home
• Cut back any trees or shrubs that overhang your roof. This is an easy entry point for roof rats
• Clean up fallen fruit from fruit trees or other obvious food sources in your yard
• Store livestock or pet food in metal containers with tightly fitting lids
• Dont leave food scraps laying around in animal pens feed scraps in the morning and only feed an amount you know your animals will consume to avoid having food laying around.
• Eliminate easy sources of water, like bird baths, puddles or watering cans

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How To Get Rid Of A Gopher In Yard

You can place all sorts of natural deterrents around your property to repel gophers. Growing plants with strong smells such as sage, daffodils, iris, thyme, and geranium will repel them, for example, as will placing fish oil, peppermint oil, coffee grounds, or tabasco sauce on the ground.

Gophers can be a nuisance, but they are not a threat to human health or safety. If you see a gopher in your yard, do not approach it. Instead, call your local animal control agency to report it to them.

• Does Pine Sol deter gophers?

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How To Get Rid Of Snakes In The Yard

Follow these steps on how to get rid of snakes in the yard:

Snakes will sun their cold-blooded animal bodies but do not care to be exposed to the open for long. They will cross a lawn to get to a source of food, warmth or a perceived natural habitat like a damp pool area.

When you keep grassy areas and lawns cut down and back to minimal heights, those spaces become much less appealing to a snake. The snake will not want to be exposed and thus vulnerable in an open area for long. Chances are it will choose to crawl through more protective denser grass and growth to get to where its going.

Snakes like to take shelter and will seek out hiding places. Think of anything placed on the ground as an easy entry point for the mostly ground-dependent snake. Keep random outdoor items snakes might hide in, things like coiled garden hoses and wood piles, as far off the ground as possible.

If you can safely manage the distance needed between you and it, a snake moving along the ground can be contained by dropping a trash can over it. Put bricks or stones on the top to secure the can in place. Then, if available, an animal control service can be called to remove the snake from the area for you.

Do I Have A Gopher Or A Mole Problem

The presence of mounds alone isnt enough to identify gophers since moles also make mounds.

In one of our previous articles, How to Identify Gopher Damage in Your Yard, we discussed the difference between mole and gopher mounds.

Heres the easiest way to determine whether the mounds youre seeing are the work of gophers or moles:

When gophers make a mound, they push the dirt out, creating a crescent or horseshoe shape.

You might not see the mound in rocky or clay-type soil, but you will see the entry hole, which the gophers have filled back in.

Moles, on the other hand, create neat, conical mounds.

Additionally, gophers plug the entry holes into their tunnels. If you look closely, youll probably see the plugs sitting on the top of a mound.

Finally, gophers break up the soil as they dig their tunnels, creating fine, sifted soil.

Moles move earth in large clumps and only create a tunnel entrance every six feet or so, while gophers create a tight-knit group of tunnels and holes in close proximity to one another.

Gophers are active during the day, and they do not hibernate, so the presence of gophers in your yard or garden will be relatively easy to spot.

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How Do You Get Gophers

Gophers are found in North and Central America, usually in areas with sturdy soil thats rich in moisture and clay. Much of the United States is hospitable to gophers, however, the western two-thirds of the country, as well as states in the Southeast prove to be popular habitats.

Gophers feed on plants, fruits, and vegetables, and are attracted to yards featuring lots of plant life, particularly alfalfa, carrots, dandelions, grasses, potatoes, radishes, tree bark, and tulips.

What Are Pocket Gophers

• Pocket Gophers, also known plainly as gophers, are burrowing rodents that get their name from their large cheek pouches, or pockets which they use for carrying their food and nesting materials. This method of carrying food in their cheeks often get them confused to be a chipmunk, a woodchuck or a squirrel.
• Pocket gophers can cause a lot of damage, not just from burrowing but also from their eating habits. Pocket gophers eat just about anything. Most of the eating they do, however, is from underground. They yank plants down from the root and eat them underground.

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How To Use Plants That Repel Gophers

Plants like rosemary, thyme, sage, and geranium can be planted in the ground or in pots, and gophers will not like the scent. You can also use eucalyptus and pine as a plant, tree, or shrub. However, you can take advantage of the gopher deterrent properties of these strong-scented plants by using their essential oil extracts as well.

If you want to use the essential oils of these plants that gophers hate, you can make DIY sprays of one or more oils.

Simply combine 10-15 drops of the oils with a base of water or water mixed with vinegar. You can also soak cotton balls in the diluted oils and place them in spots where you have noticed gopher holes.

Always make sure to dilute your essential oils before spraying them around your property. Essential oils are highly concentrated and should not be used undiluted.

All of these plants and herbs have a very strong smell. Gophers do not like these plants because they overwhelm their sense of smell which they rely on heavily as a part of their defense mechanism. If they cant smell a predator, they wont know when to jump in their holes to hide.

While these plants are offensive to gophers, they do offer a pleasant smell for your yard and often make beautiful additions to edging and garden beds.