Moles, Voles & Gopher Holes!

Gopher We are so fortunate to live on the the eastern plains of Colorado (i.e. prairie). The wind blows most of the time, we get blizzards in the winter, and we are still inside a drought period. It's usual to get summertime hail storms, and parts of the country are in the path of tornadoes. It's a good life if you don't buckle under! To top off all of that, our ground is mostly sand or silt, depending on where you dig into it, which is very nice for little creatures that burrow in it. There are prairie dogs, ferrets and ground squirrels galore, which are prey for all the wonderful raptors that live in this state. Since there are so many raptors, I do not wish to reduce their food supply by destroying moles, gophers, voles and ground squirrels as well as rabbits. My only option is to make them move out of my space.

I have tried every gopher trap and poison known to man. Gophers are smarter than a trap. I had a neighbor once who resorted to shooting them with a rifle, but that requires sitting and waiting for them to emerge above ground. Leave that to the cats.

When we first arrived at our house the ground was so bumpy with dirt mounds it was impossible to mow over. Our neighbor shared a little device that scares off the moles, voles and gophers. I was very skeptical (based on past failures) that anything would work the way it's suppose to, but my husband proceeded to make at least a dozen of these contraptions and place them wherever he saw gopher or vole activity.

I have to admit, we no longer have any signs of gophers, voles or moles around the house, driveway, orchard or any where we place these gopher chasers. Our long driveway edge is smooth and even, and easy to mow. The snow that lands there is smooth and flat, making it easier for it to blow away from the driveway path, and easier to plow snow when it gets that bad.

Here are the instructions for making your own gopher chasers:

You will need:

Metal poles about 4-5 ft long, any kind of metal, should be unpainted.
Save up and wash empty food cans like those from a can of tomatoes or corn, etc. Large gallon cans are too big for this project, and those tiny chopped olive cans are too small. Beer cans are much too thin and don't survive.
Sturdy wire that is bendable but thick enough to survive a beating. Coat hanger wire is about the right thickness, but it can be a little stiff to bend, but go ahead and use it if it's all you have on hand. Floral wire is too soft for this purpose.
Tools you will use are a hammer and large nail and pliers.
Optional: spray paint.

Each Gopher Chaser will need one pole and five cans. If you are going to paint your cans a pretty color, do it first and let them dry before you continue. Originally we painted all our cans thinking it would help to preserve them from rusting too much, but the paint cuts down on the vibration and sound the cans make, making them a tad bit less effective. Different paint brands have different abilities to stick to metal and withstand the knocking around it gets. Different metals take paint differently as well.

My recommendation: don't bother painting your cans, let them age naturally to a nice part rust verdigris finish. They are actually less conspicuous that way. They have a tendency to be obvious anyway. We had a lot of gopher chasers close to the house for a couple of years, but now they are all very far away and we only hear them in a really bad wind storm, like some weather alert device.

Use the hammer and large nail to punch four holes in one can, equal distant apart near the top opening of one can.
Punch a single hole in the center of the bottom of four cans.
Cut four lengths of wire about 12" long.
Make a curly coil on one end of each wire that is large enough to prevent it from slipping through the hole.
Put each wire through a can hole going in from the inside and out the bottom so that when you hold the straight edge of the wire your can is dangling on the other end with the open end facing down, something like a bell on a string.
Put the other end of all of the four wires into one of the four holes in the can with the four holes and bend the wire over to keep it on the can. Do not make the closing of the wire tight, keep it loose so the wire can move easily without coming off. If this part is too hard to figure out, ask a boy scout to show you a loop knot pattern that you can use for this application.
Now, you take your set of cans and the metal pole out to where you want to place it and insert the pole into the ground. A gopher hole is an excellent starting point to put them.
Then you place the can with the four holes over the top of the metal pole. Your done.

Nature will do the rest. In the breeze, the cans will rattle and make a vibration under the surface that ground dwellers find irritating and they will move away from it. Place the gopher chasers strategically, up to 40' apart, starting close in to where they have been making mounds. Leave them in place for a few months at least.

I found a gopher hole in one of my raised flower beds and stuck a gopher chaser in it. The gopher stopped working that hole and after one month I moved the chaser into a hole further out in the yard. When I did that, the gopher started using the hole in the bed again, so I had to move the chaser back to it. I then left it there for about 4 months, and then moved it into the outer hole, and have had no more gopher activity in that area since.

The raised bed was just off the patio at the back door, so we had to listen to the fairly constant rattle of the cans for a good six months, but it was worth it to get rid of that critter. When the dogs smell a ground dweller, they start digging holes to get at them, making the mess bigger and harder to fix.