gophers....

[Lycopene Dream]

Vickipr - I have read about Castor oil, it is encouraging to see that it has actually worked for you, or at least so far.

Tom - I am becoming resigned to the fact that this is a percentage game at best and likely a problem that will always be here in some form. Through multiple tactics, I may mitigate some of the damage, but will likely never be completely gopher free. I live in Woodland Hills, a gopher hotbed, and my house is on just under 1/2 acre. This is hill property and the back section is adjacent to a "wild" belt that is maybe 75' deep and unmaintained and full of nature before the next house takes over. I have gophers in the backyard, front yard and both sides of the house. For the first time, sections of the hill behind my house are dying from the gopher root destruction. It has never been as bad as this current season (March/April)). In addition to the many fresh and antiquity status crescent mounds, there are DOZENS of open holes in the flat section of my backyard from presumably current and prior activity (this many open holes seems inconsistent with gophers' MO, so maybe I have varmints of a different kind as well?). I really have my work cut out to even determine which tunnels are active. There have been some gopher suicides in the swimming pool, which before my recent plant losses were met with shades of melancholy on my part. But now, ha ha, I want to just nuke 'em. The ancillary effect of all this is that I have a 300 square foot plot in which I was planning to start "Cornville", but that planting has been put on indefinite hold until I feel like I have made some progress with the gophers (there's an active tunnel in the plot that just popped up last weekend).

I am a rookie at all this, but I find the process of attempting to grow tomatoes incredibly rewarding, frustrating and peaceful, all at the same time. This is a really helpful forum, I appreciate all of the input.

[BarbJ]

Like I say, LD you have my sympathy. I do know that trapping is not going to win the day, but if I can take out some youngens and breeders, then it will help a little.
From experience I think the open holes are from a. a feeding hole that a young one forgot to plug up. if you have lots of yearlings, they do stupid stuff like that. It also means breeding has been good that year. (grrr!)
b. you have so many tunnels they are crossing each other so much that they collapse.
We also live near a semi-wild area adjacent to a creek, so yeah, unending supply.
Gopher also are somewhat cyclical in their breeding, some years are bumper crops, so to speak.
Also, if you lose any local predators they will breed out of control for a while until more predators move back. In our case, it was feral cats and an owl that kept them down. Feral cat "owner" moved and the cats went to the pound. The other neighbor cut down most of her trees, one of which the owl was living in. (grrr!) So for the next few years we've had a gophergeddon!
I don't mind the cats being gone as we now get lots more quail (a ground nester) than before, but I do miss that owl.
Anyone know where to buy gopher snakes?

[Rockporter]

We had a house on North Padre Island in Corpus Christi and we had a huge gopher snake that would come out of the Coyote Flats and along our fence line. He would curl up in the front yard flower bed and wait for the gophers to come out and play. The snake was at least 10 feet long and yellow/white in color. He was gorgeous and I never made it leave, but I didn't go near it either because he helped keep the gophers down. One time I saw him leaving the yard along the fence and heading back to the flats with a huge lump in his belly.

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Scott after having my run in with gophers I resorted to using gopher bombs.
Here is one in use.
I haven't seen one in years now.
Worth

I laughed pretty hard at this!
Marsha

[efisakov]

In England they have a special breed of dogs Dachshund, to help with creatures like you have. I know it will take some time to train the dog, but they do like to dig and they are great companions.

[Lycopene Dream]

That sounds good and genuinely practical, but I think my Border Collie would eat the Dachsund, before the Dachsund eats the gophers!

My traps arrived and I will attempt my first "capture" this weekend.

[LDx4]

Ella, you're right -- dachshunds are great hunters and love to dig. We have four of them and so far, no gopher problems

But... we discovered last summer that the youngest one likes to eat tomatoes right off the vine! Not quite sure what we're going to do about that this year

LD -- they did a study and found that dachshunds were the most vicious breed of dog -- more so than the bigger breeds -- don't let their small size fool you!! Ours think they are killers and will go after anything that moves!

Here is our little one last summer, trying to snag a tomato off the vine...

[Dak]

LD, our situation sounds quite similar. I've quite decided that we have 8 lane gopher super highways that are running underground.

Everything I plant, I protect with either gopher cages or I place in my raised beds that are lined with hardware cloth. I use cinch traps, but I'm really a lousy trapper. I will not use poisons.

At one time, everything used to eat gophers; wolves, coyotes, birds of prey, but since we've eliminated their predators we're stuck with the results. I understand the wineries around here have full time crews that constantly trap.

[Lycopene Dream]

Just a quick update - scored the first gopher re-location on Saturday! I set opposing traps, back to back within a fresh tunnel and about an hour later I checked them to discover one had been sprung. Worked very well, my 300 square foot future corn plot is now gopher free and I am installing hardware cloth around its perimeter, vertically down to about a foot and then horizontally for another foot.

[lakelady]

We have them here too, but with the hills and forest across the street from me, no way to really tell where they come and go from. There was a hole under a boulder in my yard that is about 12' tall, but no idea where the other end was, across the street from anything Icould figure.

I hired a trapper. He charged $150.00 and came as many times as needed, and left with 3 gophers (2 babies 1 adult and a few minks got into the traps too). He told me to put wire mesh in the hole and then block that with rocks as they won't try to dig or chew through the mesh. Worked like a charm and (fingers crossed) it has been 2 years with no gophers. Not to say they aren't out in the woods, but not coming into my yard anymore.

Probably helps that we got a second cat, and she is always in the yard scouting for things to play with