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Getting Rid of Gophers
self

Posted on 06/05/2003 11:09:06 AM PDT by Oorang

Does anyone know of a sure fire way to get rid of gophers? We have tried poison, flooding and road flares. Tried the "vibration" method with a third horse motor, vibrates the ground 20 feet away, didn't work. Now have 120 volt ac wires connected to two steel stakes spanning the trouble area. Shotgun is out of the question since the gopher is burrowing right by some water lines.

Short of searching out Bill Murray, any suggestions? Thanks all.


TOPICS: Agriculture; Gardening; Outdoors
KEYWORDS: faq; gardening
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To: Abe Froman
To: Abe Froman.

There's nothing wrong with a safety last attitude. Life's too short. Remember, if you aren't living on the edge, you're taking up too much room. OBTW, are you the Sausage King of Chicago?

21 posted on 06/05/2003 8:14:54 PM PDT by Lawgvr1955 (Hypocrisy!! Thy name is Government.)
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To: rontorr
I suppose he would fit right in with drivers in the second and third world!
22 posted on 06/06/2003 8:43:38 AM PDT by Abe Froman
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To: Lawgvr1955
Yep, I'm Abe Froman.....are you suggesting that I'm not who I say I am???
23 posted on 06/06/2003 8:44:17 AM PDT by Abe Froman
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To: Oorang
I understand Whirlagigs work. You know those tacky pinwheels that spin around in the wind? Supposedly the vibration is transferred into the ground via the stem and the gophers hate it and leave. You need one with a metal stem, tho. Then treat your ground to kill insects. They go after grubs, etc in the soil.
24 posted on 06/06/2003 10:36:05 PM PDT by ETERNAL WARMING
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To: Oorang
What kind of poison? Do you have access to "Phostox"? If you don't know what I'm refering to you don't have the license as it is restricted. Gasoline will work but you do not light it. Just pour about 4-8 ounces down the hole then cap it with newpaper and dirt. Both of these methods are using toxic fumes or gas to attack your problem. The first involves phosphene which is very deadly to anything that requires breathing oxygen. And it is quick (less than 5 min).
25 posted on 06/07/2003 6:22:35 AM PDT by Dust in the Wind (¡Si usted permanece en este país, usted debe aprender es el idioma oficial!)
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To: Oorang

I've been using the Black Hole Trap on my land. I've killed about 50 pocket gophers so far, including 6 in one day. When fresh digging is detected, I probe with a long screwdriver to determine the direction of the tunnel then dig down and place one trap facing each direction. If you don't catch any within a day or so, move to another area.

26 posted on 06/07/2003 6:54:25 AM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (A bad day FReepin' beats a good day workin'.)
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To: Oorang
My dad buried empty beer bottles up to their necks, leaving the "mouth" exposed so the wind would blow across it. The whistling/vibrating it caused in the ground caused the gophers to relocate.
27 posted on 06/07/2003 10:22:46 PM PDT by cgk (Rummy on WMD: We haven't found Saddam Hussein yet, but I don't see anyone saying HE didn't exist.)
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To: Oorang
My friend got rid of her gophers by pouring animal urine down the holes. I'm trying to remember what animal..... maybe dog? Anyway, my first concern would be how to collect the urine. ..... Maybe it was horse urine. Tell you what, I'll write and ask her. I can personally verify that her gophers are gone and they were really bad for a while.

Note: I once had a huge backyard and boarded three dogs back there for almost two years. No gophers. The dogs went back to their homes and shortly thereafter gophers appeared, eventually turning my backyard into their own personal playground.

I have also heard that putting dry ice down the holes works but have no experience.

28 posted on 06/07/2003 10:57:11 PM PDT by Auntie Mame (Why not go out on a limb, isn't that where the fruit is?)
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To: Oorang
Just heard from my friend about how she got rid of her gophers. Are you ready? In her own words:

"Every time [the dog] went poop, instead of throwing the poop away in the trashcan, I stuffed it into the holes! Then I put more water in them to flush the poop down farther down into the tunnels. Well, that fixed the little SOBs. No more gopher holes."

Hope you have a dog or it might be really embarrassing asking your dog owning neighbors and friends for their help.
29 posted on 06/08/2003 8:41:06 AM PDT by Auntie Mame (Why not go out on a limb, isn't that where the fruit is?)
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To: Auntie Mame
Thanks for your input. I have a dog and he is trained to poop out in the woods (we have 40 acres) instead of on the lawn. But, hey, chasing him around to gather his "ammo" is worth a try. Thanks.
30 posted on 06/08/2003 3:46:24 PM PDT by Oorang
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To: Tijeras_Slim
Thanks for your reply. My husband just got two of those traps so I hope we are as lucky as you have been.
31 posted on 06/08/2003 3:48:25 PM PDT by Oorang
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To: Dust in the Wind
We did the gasoline in the hole yesterday. Actually, have a sprayer with a long "wand" and used a total of 2 gallons of gas, everywhere. No sign of the &$*&% gopher today. Will keep my fingers crossed as he has gone through quite a few plants in the last couple of weeks. Thanks for your advice.
32 posted on 06/08/2003 3:50:48 PM PDT by Oorang
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To: Oorang
Two traps are a minimum. If there's lots of activity, you may want more, but see how they work for you first.

Haven't had much gopher activity this year (only lost one small shrub), but the ground squirrels are eating my garden and digging up and hauling off crocus and tulip bulbs. I use a havahart on them (because the neighbors are close enough that I don't want to shoot) and haul them far away and let them go in forest land. (Once they're trapped, it seems unsporting to do them in.)

33 posted on 06/08/2003 3:55:05 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (A bad day FReepin' beats a good day workin'.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim
Just wanted to let you know the Black Hole Trap you recommended got the bugger this morning. He won't get any more of my cabbages. Thanks for the advice.

Good luck with the squirrels and saving your bulbs. I lost about 50 tulip bulbs one year and we starting trapping them. I called it the squirrel relocation program. Once trapped we would take turns driving them about 3 miles away to an abandoned gravel pit where people now shoot. About one week of driving down there at least 25 times per day and I said "where's the birdshot".

34 posted on 06/12/2003 2:41:31 PM PDT by Oorang
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To: Oorang
Let's hope the trend is as follows...

Keep up the good work!
35 posted on 06/12/2003 2:45:19 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: Oorang
Also it is pretty comical the way their butts hang out of the trap. :)
36 posted on 06/12/2003 2:46:15 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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Reporting on some progress I’ve made on the gophers in my yards.

I did an internet search and there’s a lot of information on how to get rid of gophers. I wanted a simple, cheap, fast method. I buy the poisoned pellets every year but they don’t seem to work very well any more. I think I figured out why — gophers have an excellent sense of smell and can pick up the scent.

I was impressed with the vast array of approaches and I tried the road flares because that was the most fun. I saw the smoke bombs available at Home Depot and read that the active ingredient is sulfur dioxide, which is the same gas that is put out by road flares for 1/5 the price. Whenever I find a hole I just pop a section of road flare down it and bury the flare. It’s cool looking. I notice that it works better when I run the water hose down the hole at the same time; the combination gives them more than they can handle.

I do think the variations of combinations are the key — change up the juicy fruit and poison pellets with fox urine and flares, throw in a propane bomb or just a hose hooked up to your exhaust to generate Carbon Monoxide; put down peppers or castor oil or kitty litter or whatever they don’t like. Buying a snake sounds like it really works. Pour gasoline or ammonia down the hole. Plant the Euphorbia lathyris (a.k.a. gopher plant, mole weed, myrtle spurge, wild caper, caper bush and spring wort) which contains a caustic sap that repels gophers to a distance of 10 feet.

I’ve heard the buggers are lazy and will reuse their runs so I started putting poison pellets down in small baggies into their holes. I don’t know if it works. Knowing their sense of smell is acute, I smothered my gloves in carrot juice and then wrapped the pellets in plastic (they just chew right through my ground cover plastic so it’s useful to reuse that) and then shove the long, thin offering into the hole through a pipe.

I also heard animal urine works. But fox urine, called “Shake away” is expensive. So I dug a trench and pissed in it a few times and then covered it up. It felt good to be pissing on their heads... hah hah. I don’t know how well this worked.

I haven’t tried juicy fruit gum. Sounds fun.

Here’s a trick that I use that I don’t see anywhere else. I buy torch-apply roofing material and lay it on the ground as a temporary path way. It’s very rugged, simple, keeps weeds away and the gophers can’t chew through it. Even though they chewed through the ground cover plastic in dozens of places, there was not one bite of this torch-app TP4 roofing material. In the areas where I don’t care that the gophers operate, this stuff works fine and their dirt doesn’t get everywhere. Eventually when I pull up the material, I find a gopher run underneath it, so I can find where the entry or exit holes are and start laying down flares.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pests/msg010831127138.html

http://icwdm.org

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/index.html
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7433.html

How do I kill moles/gophers in an urban environment?
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/archive/index.php/t-116232.html

As a side note, I finally got the upper hand on the squirrel population by using a soft pellet gun. When the gun jammed, I returned it and now I just use a sling shot. It harrasses them and they want to leave the area. Fine with me. If they stay, I get some target practice. If they leave, I get to eat my peaches from my tree. There’s some simple technology that doesn’t jam. Today I noticed a squirrel nest just above my roof line so I went up to inspect it, and was surprised to see a little rat-like head poking out. I had a garden instrument with me and tried to whack the little bugger but he was too fast.


37 posted on 02/06/2009 11:33:07 PM PST by Kevmo ( It's all over for this Country as a Constitutional Republic. ~Leo Donofrio, 12/14/08)
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