Getting rid of voles

Posted by admin on July 2nd, 2008 filed in Voles

How shall I catch the vole? How shall I drive it away?
Being on the edge of asking a helping hand of one environment protector office …I have tried everything and only one method paid off (until now).
Repel First I tried the gently way. I larded the garden soil with varying machineries, that emitted sounds, vibrations respectively resonance vibrations. There was no result. The most surprising was that one of the critters was not a bit impressed but quite imprudently about 40 cm under my machine digging. My dear, I speak from experience: Throw away the gardening machines directly into the garbage container or better don’t buy them from the very beginning! For example, the sticking of garlic into the access corridor or whatever secret plants you may choose to graft proved to be a non-sense. Forget it! At least in my case all above given methods proved a loss of time (in the best case, they may be successful for some voles with relationships problems, as no garlic banner was available)
Gasify Then I thought- if the voles do not appear when I strive for their appearance, than I saw myself constrained to pick up a more convincing gun: gasifying. Problem no.1: The needed agents are for use in the private gardens not allowed. They are only allowed when a dangerous criminal keep creeping in the garden. For example, such case would be when a fruit farmer would hardly need this agent, in order to save his/her existence in the industry… in this case he/she is allowed to buy just as little dose possible!-) “But please don’t mix it with water!” added the saleswoman.. and in this way she gave birth to a new idea: to prepare to the voles a little party. This gasification agent reacts with the humidity on the soil. I only had to stick it in the hole and there it developed a gas, which distributed itself into the corridors, as the gas is denser as the air. I put a good portion into the access corridor (what repeat: is banned and dangerous) and waited to rain voles. Transmitted, smoldered and stunk. For sure, this was not healthy either for the voles nor for me and the neighbors, who were just having their first culet on their barbeque grill and ironically interrogated me if I received my barbeque part.
Problem no.2: The voles are not smokers. Soon after they smelled the danger, they holed up in the remote angle of their access corridor. And that may result in a 70 up to 80 m long tunnel when speaking about a hard-working colony. In the end, all my efforts I did so far remained unrewarded. A college of mine, who also shared some painful experiences, tried to blow up the access corridor with carbon monoxide exhaust gases. He became in return only bother particularly due to the noise annoyance.

Burn up On the burning up experience of the same college, who filled up the corridor with gas which he later set on fire, I prefer not to further report. Half of his garden blows up and he did not get shot of voles.
Rivets
At last, I have tried for the voles every method I found. Here you may find the different options I tried, but I would rather not present them in detail. I tried everything possible and I became a living model, who finally managed to come with excellent results. These I present in the following.
First of all I report, why did not work all the above presented methods.
The problem of the most of the methods was that these were not soft enough. In most of the cases the subject is feed with a bait (this was a non-sense in our case, please find more about that bottom), that actually leads to success. If the vole tries to give away the bait, the case is solved. In my case this was not the solution. My voles apparently devour the bait outside their house also, as the bait was regularly eaten. After this event I thought that the bait was not eaten by the voles but by other field mice that used the access corridor commonly with the voles.
But why is the bait option false in the given case? First we shall review the feeding habits of the voles. The voles dig their corridor approximately 5 to 15 cm under the ground surface. There reaches the plants’s rooting, that from underground nibbles. The deposits they make for wintertime are made of any rooting, because the rootings keep themselves fresh for a long time. The apples, the carrots or the turnip cabbage (that actually work good as baits) cannot remain fresh that much. On the contrary, the corridor is rarely used and the bait remains usually some days unmoved in the corridor. Then these baits begin to alter and scare away our tender animals through their musty smell, which we did not take into consideration in the first place.
Furthermore, the handling of death animals is not something that anyone can do. In most cases death animals are hardly discharged. In order to accomplish that one has to touch the death animal normally and I am not very found of such experiences. Warning: the voles have parasites, bacterial and viral diseases, which can also affect humans as for example: tapeworm, leptospirose, Hatan virus. That’s why you should handle death and living animals only with gloves!!
With hindsight I am therefore happy that I did not have to actually touch alive or dead voles. My favorite device, which I further on present, allows a simple and hygienic handling. In this way you don’t have to get in touch with the animal and you don’t get dirty, as you may use this device from outside.
Besides I had had problems with the other devices I tested when introducing them in the corridor and in this line of thoughts I had to open a little bit more the entrance in the corridor. In this way some rests of garbage often remained around the places I tried to capture my targets. Next the voles had the holes in the access corridor covered. If the damage of the corridor was too large they did a loop away respectively construct a new offshoot and the damaged part of the corridor was no more used and therefore it remained empty.

Another disadvantage was that such cases cannot be controlled from a distance. You have to get rid of the garbage from the corridor or at least you have to open it again. And this was really unpleasant. Finally none may want to simply leave there such animal for long and furthermore may try to prevent such cases on a regular basis.
Of course there may be some who possess the patience, the needed skills and no disgust of handling a death vole. After all why shouldn’t we follow the easy way???
What I did not mentioned so far are the tubes I used. Such tubes have hatches at both ends and should be placed into the access corridor. When a mouse enters, the hatches close. Supposedly – as the animals protectors do- it would be better if the animals are catch alive. What is to be done afterwards??? Shall we leave them free again?? In the best case on the land of the neighbor one hates! In addition this method of catching alive animals works only when the tubes are regularly and at short intervals controlled. Otherwise can the animal torturously in there perish?
The favorite!
The single method which paid off was the top-cat option of a Swiss producer. The protected by letters patent device is simple but ingenious. The simple, the most successful. Keep it simple!

The advantages of this device are:

- the mechanism is sensible at the outside but closes very quickly also
- an entrance access at each end. What good if the mouse comes in the false direction?
-the control is kept from a distance. No laboriously digging in order to gain control.
-the simple technique assures a simple handling. This brings success.
-the device is sure. No unnecessary death of the animal will occur.
-the processing of the device of stainless steel and valorous components makes it robust, durable and reliable. Each component can be replaced with a spare part and is recyclable.
-no baits, poison or gasifying agents will be used. The device works mechanical.
-remain no holes after the device is extracted from the corridor.
-the device can be discharged without contact with the death animal. The clutch of the device is very hygienic also.

No part should be touched, that came into contact with the animal before (although you should use gloves!)
Technical Information
Spring active mechanism
Weigh: cca. 600g
High: 270 mm
Width: 55 x 85 mm
Material: Stainless steel
worldwide patent announced

1= Release bar
2= Compensator
3= Gripping lever (in the released potion is the gripping lever bottom)
4= Body
5= Trigger

Setting up

One Topcat device should be placed without attracting attention on one heal. The working system of the Topcat device is based on the experience that mice are moving in their corridors, no matter what time of the day or of the year. No agents or substances have to be added. If the corridor is populated, one may relay on a catch in a time interval from some minutes to maximal two hours. As the corridors are in most cases dwelt by many mice and the construction does not suffer major damages, numerous catch ups are likely and usual in the same place but in a longer time space. With the Topcat device one may practically catch mice no matter what season. The uniformity of the land where the Tocat will be placed has no importance.

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In detail:

With a hole cutter (or another tool) one may cut a clean hole in one access corridor (1-2 cm deeper than the corridor)
I always buy a simple finger for plants’ holes from the gardening area.

The device shall be sealed air-tight with the soil surface. The light penetration into the hole should be avoided.

The gripping lever together with the compensator should be place in the superior position.

The compensator should be hold with the thumbs of the same hand in the release bar direction. With the other hand one should pull the release bar in its superior position and align it with peak of the compensator. Keep holding the release bar in this position.

The peak of the compensator should be placed on the peak of the release bar (only the compensator should move in the upper direction)

The device was activated. One may notice it, because the compensator is no longer placed in its superior position due to the weigh but it is situated beside the device body.

               

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