Yard rodent control ... cheaper than the store

[HomeBrew2]

I was going [more] crazy trying to rid my small lawn of pocket gophers and even cut the store bought smoke bombs in half cuz I was using so many. Then I heard a public service spot on the radio warning of the perils of mixing bleach and amonia when cleaning stuff. Cool, I'm on that!!! Taking a giant teaspoon of spa chlorinating granules and shoving it into a, cleaned out, gopher hole then pouring a glop or so of pure amonia in creates and wonderful toxic cloud and seems to make the gophers assume room (yard) temperature. Life just gets better. Cheers!

 

[Highbeam]

Yeah, I was told that's how ****** made the chlorine gas. We do a similar trick only use an ammonia soaked rag and bleach. This reaction has killed many housekeepers in the bathtub when trying everything they had to clean that dang ring. The chloringe gas should be heavier than air and will settle down and fill their tunnels (or a bathtub). The heat of the reaction is temporarily making the gas in your photo rise. It will sink again when back to ambient temps.

Go get em.

My neighbor thought he would mix up the ammonia and bleach in a pitcher in his garage and then dump the mix down the gopher hole. Well it turns out that the mixture foams up pretty big and fast and overflowed the pitcher pronto. He had to abandon the mission and hose out the garage.

The next backyard trick..... little aluminum foil packets of antifreeze. The gophers love it.

 

[HomeBrew2]

OH !, I am half German ... guess I'm predisposed /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I tried the bleach and amonia ... in the gopher hole ... poor reaction ... not in the garage though, THAT'S where my beer stockpile is !!!

Agreed on the heavier than air. Took some experimentation though ... upwind. Slept thru chem classes ... sorry about that now.

OK, you're on, antifreeze in baggies is the next cheapskate thing I'll try !!! Disclaimer: No dawgs, catz, livestock nor kids or old folks around here ... just me.

Cheers! Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[LarryD]

Now what are ya going to use for target practice?

 

[HomeBrew2]

With each solution comes another problem ... I'm still kicking myself for exterminating all the ground squirrels in my neighborhood some 11 years ago ... well, I was layed off from work and took up a hobby ... targets are few and far between now /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[ronjhall]

We don't have problems with gophers here. But groundhogs can be a problem. I use the same combination in their holes. It does not seem to do them in at first. But they never seem to make it through the winter.
Here is a post from a few years ago on the subject. Click Here

 

[Jagmandave]

Wow, I can't believe you got rid of your squirrels, in my neighborhood, shooting them seems to be an incentive to make more, and they seem to come back with a vengeance..... the more you shoot, the more move in, either from other neighborhoods or from new babies.....

 

[BobReeves]

Reminds me of the mad scientist I thought I was when I was a kid. Then chemistry sets contained all sorts of nasty stuff that is near impossible to get today like everything needed to make black powder, sulfur, potassium nitrate, all kinds of good stuff. My shop was in the basement and of course that is also where Mon had all her cleaning and laundry supplies. Well one day I thought I needed to augment the chemicals that came with my chemistry set and started mixing stuff I found in the cleaning closet. That was 50 years ago and don't remember what I did but it got pretty exciting and a wonder I'm still alive.

 

[Highbeam]

The old kits used to have mercury. Quicksilver. One chemical we always had around to play with was gasoline /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Supposedly there is some kind of cool reaction that takes place with the granular chlorine and brake fluid. Spontaneous combustion.

 

[psuedofarmer]

excellent post and information here - thanks!

i have a serious problem with voles this year. this should do the trick!

pf