Many of you have talked about troubles with pocket gophers. The first two years on this property I put my efforts to control gophers on the back burner while I focused on marmots. Since the marmots got a late start this year compared to the previous two years, I made a serious attempt to at least decrease the numbers of gophers in my barnyard, garden area and berry patch. I haven’t started on my yard or back pasture, an area maybe 2-plus acres. The pasture is riddled with gopher mounds, but since I don’t have animals yet, I just mow it and ignore the clouds of dust as I hit a mound.
I made a probe from a long steel rod so I wouldn’t have to bend over, and walked the perimeter of the area, around an acre in size, pushing the rod into the ground about every foot. Any spot that seemed to push in easily after the initial surface resistance got a dose of rodent poison from a Yard Butler applicator (
Gopher Bait Applicator). I figured it made more sense to waste a little poison by over-application, than to miss a tunnel. After covering the perimeter of the area, I did the same thing around the garden (about 50 X 80 feet), as well as every path or row. Any mound left over from last year got a dose of poison. If it looked or felt suspicious, it got a dose.
That happened in early June, and I have not seen evidence of a single gopher anywhere in the mentioned area, most importantly in the garden. We significantly reduced planting the garden this year because of last year’s predation, but I am thinking we may be able to plant a more normal garden next year. If I can keep some level of control over the marmots and the gophers, we may actually get some green beans and sweet corn next year.
I haven’t had a marmot in a trap for three weeks, and although I can’t stack up the gopher corpses, it looks like I may have control in that one acre spot. I used a bit of the same poison in my barn: I now find mouse bodies here and there in and around the barn. Mice already chewed up the wiring and upholstery in a 1957 MGA stored in the barn, but maybe I can prevent further damage. We don’t have cats or dogs, so I’m not concerned about downstream poisoning. I know I will have to keep the pressure on, but right now I am feeling optimistic.