How in thee Heck do I get rid of a family of Voles?
Posted on May 25, 2010
How in thee Heck do I get rid of a family of Voles? Not moles, but Voles! Damn thing are tearing up my yard. I've seen all the crap at the stores and online. But if you have experience getting rid of Voles let me know.
FYI: I literally and I mean it. I have over 30 holes in my front yard which is only about 7,000 sq ft.
May 25th, 2010 - 09:44
I have found that not all mouse poison will work. But I have good luck with Ramik green. Put the poison in a hole with a board on top to keep the dogs away.
I put boards out and they love to get under them. When I see activity I let them have a little tasty food. LOL
May 25th, 2010 - 10:19
A cat will dispatch them.
May 25th, 2010 - 11:14
They get in our hoop houses all the time and have devestaed expensive crops.
we use a combination of dogs (they love hunting voles but the digging damage they do can be almost as bad as the damage the voles do. if we had small dogs like rat terriers the dog damage would be much less but we have very enthusiastic large dogs with big feet and snouts), Ourselves (we will stomp to death any vole we see and can get at-toss the carcasses to the dogs) and mouse traps, unbaited, in boxes. The voles love to go into boxes and there they find themselves trapped. We use a 12″ x 12″ box with a lid and a mouse sized hole on the side. Put two set traps in the box and will get 1 to 2 voles a day. this is vs traps on the ground which would catch 1 to 2 voles a week.
Also keep your grass cut short (3″ is short enough) long grass and high weeds give voles good cover and protection. short grass, makes them sitting ducks for hawks and owls
I would not use poison because the poisoned carcasses are all too often eaten by a dog, cat, snake, bird of prey or some other wild or domestic critter and the poison will kill or severely injure whatever at the poisoned vole.
I have noted that nation wide on other small produce farms vole populations have exploded in the past 5 to 7 years.
May 25th, 2010 - 11:37
Last year we had thousands of the little buggers per hectare where I live. The most efficient way of getting rid of a big number of them was to set water traps.
Just cut the top part of a one or two gallon plastic container (milk or water containers are fine) and bury them so that the top is flush with the ground. Fill it with water up to a couple of inches from the top. The voles will not see it and fall inside. Since they can’t get out, they’ll drown. Be sure to find the paths the voles take and bury them there. The only drawback to this method is that you have to check the traps every day and take the voles out, preferably in the morning before the day becomes to hot.
As I said, last year thousands and thousands of them were caught every day with this method. In one extreme case a person dug a ditch all around his field, lined it with plastic and filled it with water. He’d find four to five thousand voles every morning.
Voles also have a genetic fear of cats. Just the smell will have them moving away, so if you don’t want to have cats, then you can probably get some sort of spray with cat odor in it.
Good luck with your hunting.