Any gopher solutions?

Wow! Okay, Sparky, here's the deal....you tell nobody about the 'secret', you import and start selling 'gopher-proof' roses.......Nobody will know how this incredibly smart woman is doing this, but it's a miracle and she's making a fortune! I'd say chances are pretty darn good that not another soul has ever noticed this connection before. After all, who plants more roses than you? Who has more gophers than you?......well, me....lol...

If you sold gopher-proof roses around here you'd be rich for sure.

Quick, take out a patent! The Multiflora is protected, but the IDEA of using it re gophers surely isn't included in that. Oh, I'd love to say I was in on the first discussions of such a discovery. Die, you little buggers!!

Die, Die, Rodent Ba#%@ds, I love it, you're gonna be riiichh!!!!! What is a Multi-flora anyway, what kind of root stock is that? Someone do tell me, please.

stellapathic I just got back from your area, we were there on Tuesday. We had a great time too. We stayed at the Orchid Inn, it was ok, but we had an incident with finding a bloody booger or something on the bottom of a bed sheet, it was fresh too. So it soured the whole hotel visit. People there are so friendly there. I want to stay in the Squibb House the next time. Sorry off topic though.

I know this post is about a year late but it is that time of year you know, All Gophers Unite Day, it's spring.We purchased the rodenator from the company that makes it in Idaho. We read a review by the ag department at Fresno State University that claims they rid themselves of 90% of their gopher problem with the Rodenator, so we took the plunge and paid out the $1800.00. I have to say it is a kick in the pants. It sure makes you feel powerful! If you have a neighbor that you don't get along with just trot outside at about 6 a.m. and let her rip!
The problem with the rodenator in our case is that our soil, even though it is soft loam, does not collapse. The whole idea behind killing the gophers is to also collapse the tunnel system so that others don't just move right in. I believe the soil in Idaho, where the product was tested, is a little lighter and it does collapse the hole better.
Our problem is that the 7 acres we live on used to be an indian encampment and the soil is soft in some areas but not all. We found a gopher hole in one area, stuck the hose in it and it went 15 feet deep. How on earth are we going to compete with that?

If anyone has found any great contraptions or resolutions in the last year I would love to hear about them. I just lost my third crabapple tree to those little farts!

Farts, you are too kind. Is the rodenator the mixture of propane gas and oxygen that causes little explosions in the tunnel system?

I heard it is good, but the problem is as you said, some tunnels are deep and we have 5/8 of an acre of hard pan and caleche, except where I have been building it up with good stuff. I heard one guy try to light his tunnels on fire and his garage blew up, that was detached and far from the original fire. SCARY.

This works!!! And it's only $15.00.

OOPS! forgot to post the link. (thanks PotEmUp)

http://www.undergroundexterm.com/

This message was edited Apr 12, 2010 1:18 PM

I have one and I don't have any old high emission exhaust vehicles so it did not work. They told me that ones they get all smoked out they dig up the holes where it is coming in and it does not get to the area where they run too. We have too many holes to plug up in our land and the desert land too. I liked the idea but it did not work.

I've used mine with great success. It's important to NOT rev the engine. Just let it run at idle so as not to create unnecessary noise. It's also not necessary to plug any of their other holes, just pack dirt around the garden hose in the hole you put it in. It's supposed to just put them to sleep quietly from carbon monoxide fumes, not really from noxious smoke or anything.

Mine just dug another hole near the first one, but I did rev it.

Idid buy one of the noise-making battery-operated pole devices you hammer into the ground - and it actually worked very well because the gophers are gone! also, I used a sprinkle on the ground granular mixture sold at Home Depo in a yellow bag that is called gopher gone or something like that. Anyway, no more gophers this year! Good Luck! :) Rusty

I will have to check it out. I am raining rodents in the desert this year. Rabbits, mice and gophers too. Good grief, I just need to wait for the snakes to come for dinner.

My h opened the cabinet to see if there were any mice in some traps and he saw one just sitting there washing himself all cute, so my husband was amazed that it saw him and ignored him so he pushed it's little belly and it did not flinch. So he reached in to reset the trap, that had snapped and the mouse walked right into it. I hate mice and they seem to come in when we have heat waves, but that was a sad story for an animal lover. My h killed Fifal.

We have the opposite problem. The rotten rodents (I don't care how cute they look in the cartoons!), come in during the cold of winter. The summer heat doesn't bring 'em in.

Back to gophers. After loosing almost all my kitchen garden to those horrible rodents, my DH was able to trap two big uns. They are dead and gone. On the look out for new diggings. I hope I don't find any, but it's too late for the garden this year.
I would send photos, but dead rodents just aren't pretty.
My preferred method of ridding grounds of gophers is a good gopher snake. I haven't seen any so far this year. Sigh.
Can't use poison, because I have cats and dogs and an occasional small child. Gas didn't work, so I trust in traps and my DH. Bless him for dealing with the gophers so I don't have to.
Good luck with yours.
WIB!
SW

OK ALL DAVE'S GARDEN PEOPLE. HERE IS THE ANSWER FOR THE GOPHERS. WEEVIL-CIDE. I KNOW IT IS A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE BUT IT MIGHT BE WORTH GETTING YOUR LICENSE JUST FOR THIS STUFF, I SWEAR. AFTER SPENDING $1800.00 ON THE RODENATOR AND TRYING EVERYTHING ELSE I HAD HEARD OF, (THE RIDICULOUS AND NON-RIDICULOUS) I GOT THIS STUFF AND IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM. YOU CAN USE IT EVEN IF YOU HAVE OTHER ANIMALS BECAUSE IT IS A GAS BASED PILL. IT WORKS LIKE THIS; YOU EITHER USE IT RIGHT AFTER A RAIN OR PUT THE WATER HOSE DOWN THE GOPHER HOLE FOR A MINUTE OR TWO, THEN YOU PLACE A COUPLE OF THESE PILLS IN THE HOLE. (STAND BACK THEY ARE POWERFUL) THEN YOU PLACE A FILLER IN THE HOLE. I USED DAMP STRAW AND COVERED THAT WITH DIRT TO SEAL THE HOLE. THEN I COVERED ANY CLOSE HOLES. I DIDN'T HAVE GOPHERS IN THOSE HOLES FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON. IT DOESN'T HAVE A RISIDUAL EFFECT ON WILDLIFE AS IT IS A GAS THAT IS EMITTED WHEN THE MOISTURE HITS THE PILLS. IT WORKS BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE I HAVE EVER TRIED. GOOD LUCK TO ALL WHO ARE FIGHTING THE GOPHER FIGHT!

Too bad my neighbors and I are fighting, he is an exterminator, who can get that crap. GRR I use jalapenos, it moves them away from the plants until other methods work.

I agree on the gas stuff being the only thing that really works--I also tried every other gopher remedy out there and none of them worked. Now I just call the exterminator when I find them and they come and take care of them. My gophers aren't really active in the summer either--they usually start in late winter/early spring and activity dies down after early summer.

I just want to get the stuff that makes the holes collapse in on them and make them start all over, from the desert land across from me, to my yard has to be a million passages. Now I have squirrels digging holes too, which I never had before. UhG!

Forgive me if this was mentioned earlier, I don't have time to read every reply. I have heard that gophers do not like daffodil bulbs and will not eat them or cross the barrier. If you have a huge planting area, it could be expensive, but at least they multiply!

My three face-to-face meetings with the little buggers were like cartoons. Unfortunately, I was unarmed at the time. I wasn't laughing when I went outside the other day and found that they had wiped out the verbena that was blooming so well!

Good luck to us all!

The bleepers. The first one I trapped in my black box trap, was cute, like a guinnie pig and it was a freak of nature, with blonde hair. I was not glad to see it dead though. It took out a bunch of stuff that year.

Hellnzn11....uhh surely you jest! "I was not glad to see it dead though" the white gopher...just one out of 10,000 is white.. no pity, no mercy Friend! A rat is a rat is a rat!!.

Daffodil bulbs are way down at the bottom on the "Filthy dirty rat aka gopher/ground squirrel /rabbit " menu of things to destroy while they are eating.

I am getting tired of fighting these Filthy Dirty Rats. Can't afford to quit though..

This year it has been squirrels. I am repulsed when I see neighbors who buy bags of cheap peanuts to feed the "cute little ground squirrels". These people would gag if they new how closely related they are to big long-tailed roof-rats. Squirrels do tremendous damage to building foundations, Garden Wall stacked block walls, etc. etc. to say nothing of the landscape plants they will destroy.

Death to Rats all Rats!

Cheers!

Bob

Bob I am feeling ya. Really I don't like to kill spiders in my tub, but they must go. I can not tell you how many tears I have cried and even begged my h to move because of these devils. So I have no love loss. I considered doing the o2 and propane explosions that collapse the tunnels, at least I would have a fighting chance. Since there is 10 acres of desert across the dirt road in front of my house. How do you fight all those established tunnels. How do you know 1 in 100000 is white?

It fertilized my garden is what it did. This year rodents of all types are running rampant here in this area, what about it San Diego County?

I have squirrels for the first time and holes all over my yard.

Sorry, You are having such a lot of grief over these rats.

About the 1 in 10000, just made that up...I've killed 9999 and never saw a white one...It must be next. he he he

We have a 500' driveway up the hill to our house. we share first 100' with a neighbor. We see 20 or 30 ground squirrels crossing the road on the lower 100 feet. and 15 or so rabbits on the upper 400 feet.

The squirrels started up the hill. I bought squirrel bait stations and 10 lbs of squirrel bait. They are much easier to fight than gophers. They are more popular. I cringe to see people feeding these cute little rats. People feel sorry for them and don't want to kill them. They are 10 times more destructive to construction than gophers..

Gophers kill plants...so they are no. 1 on our hit list. I have cleared up squirrels, but with the squirrel factory at the bottom of the driveway we will have a perennial war against them...just like the gophers.

There is a tasteless task in dealing with both of them. Over the last 26 years dealing with them has made me different. I have difficulty with those who have tender hearts for these nasty breeders.

All the years dealing with these pests we have had dogs and sometimes cats. All outdoor pets. Our biggest danger for pets are coyotes and hawks ( they like the kittens). There is virtually no danger of pets getting into bait because we handle it with a lot of caution. Neither do birds get into it. I never leave a grain of spilled bait lie on the ground.

Sometimes it helps to chat with those who deal with these issues..it sort of helps build inner strength and resolve.

Keep up the fight...Sometimes I like to watch Caddyshack for a few minutes.

I know the pro who take care of the golf courses don't hook their exhaust pipes up to gopher holes!! Wouldn't that be funny...They could have a regular manifold system so that customers at the Club parking lot could hook up their tail pipes to the pipelines while golfing ...just leave their engines running...what a sight!!

Cheers!

bob

Caddyshack makes me mad! It is so not funny, this battle. I know someone here that baits them into humane traps and releases them into the wild, to dig more tunnels to someone Else's Garden. I put the bail in flavored marshmallows so I can squeeze the poison in the middle and they will hold up for a while. Eventually they harden.

Great hellnzn,
They are probably bringing them out to my place, like everyone else does, thinking they can make it in the wild. The coyotes, hawks, foxes find them tasty, not to mention the owls.
Let's not even talk about the environmental impact of introducing non native species to a new area.
A rodent is a rat, and I won't buy a car with a rat driving it. Caddy Shack was a funny movie, of the see once variety, but doesn't hold up over time. Rodents of any kind (except maybe bats, and I don't think they are really rodents.) have any purpose on the planet except to provide food for those higher up on the food chain.
For a really great description of how to kill a rat, may I suggest a book called "Friday" by Robert A. Heinlein. It's only a couple of paragraphs but dang, he said it better than I ever could. : - )
So far this year I've lost almost all of my kitchen garden to them rodents. : - (
The only good news is that we have some well fed critters, and I've finally convinced DH to put in the garden the right way (the way I suggested in the first place), so we don't waste so much time, money, and gasp! water.
Good luck all, it seems we're stuck with rodents. of one kind or another.
thistlesifter, you should know that owls prey on small kittens too. Don't forget the damage gophers and ground squirrels do to our overpasses and off ramps. I'm waiting for the one off the McCall Blvd. offramp to collapse from all the holes in it. Also don't forget the damage that the nutria does to the levees and banks in Louisiana. I really like that show the "Exterminator", on TV. It takes place in LA, which makes me glad we don't have to deal with all of their pests. I've seen Steven Segal going around with the Sheriff's Dept. in Baton Rouge (he really is a Sheriff), shooting the nutria that infest the banks. The dead rodents are collected and fed to the zoo animals. Sounds about right to me! : - )
After reading your previous posts, thistlesifter, I have concluded that you really don't like rodents any more than I do, and that you have a wicked sense of humor. : - )
Oh yeah, I'm looking for raw peanuts to feed the blue jays, know where I can find some? LOL!
The only plants that I've ever found that nothing likes to eat, except bees is society garlic, and blue curl. The blue curl is a wild native, so maybe you can ring in your garden and keep 'em out that way. I'm going to try it around some of my garden and see how well it works. I'll keep ya posted.
Walk In Beauty!
SingingWolf

Don't forget me if you ever sell one of those cabinets in your old house.
I have not lost one plant this year, that I can recall to gophers, just repelling them with my blended jalapenos. I put some other stuff in there sometimes too. It's so groase that I start gagging or feel very nauseous after I do it. You may not kill them but I swear the rabbits haven't eaten crap this year. I lost one baby daylilie and one other plant to bunnies, none to gophers and the squirrels have holes all over but have not eaten my plants. The only thing eating is the slugs, they must not mind spicy food. I feel bad for my worms but I am telling you, if you blend up the big jalapeno cans, add water and pour around the plant roots like roses and pour around and on some of the lower leaves, those chilis must suck into the leaves because they don't like them. If I add murpheys oil soap and a little dish soap, it repels bugs too and stays on longer. I do 2 large cans and water, every 3 months. I try to kill them still but don't have to cry over lost plants every day.

Havent found anything that gets rid of them, but- i have had luck with putting dog poop and used cat litter in the tunnels. makes them move away from that place.

Clever, I like the way you think, sherman99. LOL! : - )
Hellnzn, I'll have to give your recipe a try. I'll use it on my roses since they need some help. I'll let you know how it works out if I can 'member.: - )
I got lots of dog poop and cat litter too for that matter. LOL!
Usually I fill in the holes the dogs dig, with their poop and cover it over with dirt.
Still hate rodents. Even prairie dogs and I love the way they "Squeegal" to alert the colony to danger. Thank goodness we don't have those here too!
Snails drown in shallow containers full of beer, but slugs have a disturbing tendency to stay attached to the plant. Never tried watering a plant with beer. I wonder if it would kill the slugs?
Found another gopher hole. Probably is the trouble maker who is causing our fish/turtle pond to loose water. I'm siccing DH on him. : - |
Talked to ES about those cabinets. He plans on keeping them when (soon) he starts restoring the old cabin. It needs a lot of work. He has no idea, and he plans on doing a lot of it himself. This should be interesting. I will keep my eyes open if something similar comes my way. You liked the corner cabinet and the old sideboard, right, hellnzn?
Best get on to my next project, lunch!
WIB!
SW

Yeah, you had a lot of cool stuff on your property. I never heard about the beer but I promise the large can of jalapenos watered in around the roses are not something they want near. Would you?

My allergies are so bad, my nose is always stuffed up. So maybe I would if I could have a Sour Cream chaser. LOL!
I've got the large can of Jalapenos on my shopping list for the next trip to the store. : - )
WIB!
SW

Let me know.

Guess I have not been to this thread for awhile, but it gave me something to laugh about this AM. Not that gophers, squirrels, rats and rabbits are something to laugh about, but the stories are.
SW - I have had rabbits eat society garlic! Several years ago, having read about it being a repellent, I bought some and planted it. The next day it was eaten to the nubs. I find they particularly like fresh new plants and if you can protect them for awhile to get established, they are OK. They never bother my fountain grass anymore, even fresh growth in spring, but when I had planted the new plants from the nursery, they were gone the next day also. Squirrels seem to be staying away, mostly, but they have caused the biggest problems for neighbors, digging holes that take down huge, established pine trees and such. Gophers seem to be quiet for now, have seen a few holes, but they were next to plants planted in baskets, or next to pots (LOL for that). Wonder what kind of change, if any, we will experience after the wildfire behind our house.

OK, SW ~ Why don't you quote R. Heinlein's two paragraphs...?? We could use some humor at this stage...LOL!

You should write an article for DG, about how to train your gophers. Ours are not as well behaved yet.

evelyn, let me see if I can do that. I may not be able to without taking it out of context somewhat. I believe they were discussing rats, but it's pretty much the same for all rodents. Now where did I hide my first edition of "Friday" by Heinlein, from my son at? He probably swiped it back and put it in his room. I'll have to look for it.
I've been wanting to read it again anyway. : - )
WIB,
SW

Quilty did you take some Mystic Mervin Malva at the RU? If so how is it doing? Donna said hers is going mad. If not, I have seeds up the Kazoo I can send you. She said it is the only thing blooming in her garden at this time, since the beach had so much overcast this year, I guess.

So, it likes the cool. Not any of that around here right now (or your way, I imagine). I did take some, but it appears to be dried up in the pot I planted it in. Still water it as you thought it might come back. Seeds would be great, and I could get them going to get established in fall & winter. TYVM

You had me going there for a second QG. What the heck is TYVM mean. Then I fingered it out.
It means Thank You Very Much! My brain is starting to work again.
I'm still trying to get my son to give me back my Heinlein book. If I wasn't afraid of tripping, falling and killing myself, I'd go search his room for it. Since footing in there is treacherous, I'm going to make him do it.
Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten, just haven't been able to lay my paws on the book yet.
WIB,
SW

I will send seeds, this is the time...You could still get something to grow now, you look at them and they grow an inch.

Can you believe it? When Comcast (which runs my internet connection) went down, I'd just begun to read this thread. Believe it or not: this thread has been the only i-info I've had available for the last 36 hours. The result was that I read *every* post?

You guys are a riot! :))))))) What good-hearted folks you all are - protecting your kitties & small dogs - while you battle the vermin that attack the plants that we all love!

Personally, I've had no problems (yet!) from gophers. However, moles were a huge problem. The battery operated 'mole-chaser' that I bought with its periodic beeping seems to have done the trick. But, I gather that if gophers from the adjacent Open Space discover my daylilies, I'd be on the war path just as the rest of you are.

Good luck to all of us! :)

Sorry to hear about the Comcast connection going out on you, Rutens, but glad you found this thread amusing. You must have really been bored to read all the posts. LOL! : - )

This doesn't exactly apply to gophers, but rather to rats, which as we all know can be a real health hazard.
In a post above, I mentioned a paragraph in a book by Robert A. Heinlein that I greatly enjoyed reading about how to kill a rat. evelyn_inthegarden challenged me to find the darn paragraph, which gave me several enjoyable hours rereading a classic science fiction book.
(After I located it hiding in my ES's room.)
So this is for all of you who need a good laugh at this point. My apologies to RAH, Bless his Soul, for paraphrasing so you understand the context. I tried not to give away all the good stuff. : - )
Friday is both the name of the book and the main character. At this point, she is an intuitive analyst, for her mysterious Boss, she was asked to determine how soon the next outbreak of the bubonic plague could be expected and where it would occur, and how to keep it contained to this planet?
After a period of intensive study, her Boss calls her in the middle of the night and asks for the answers to the questions above. Which she gives him. The next day while they are discussing her answer, her Boss threatened to put her in charge of killing the rodents.

This is her response to the part about killing rats. To find out how to keep them fleas that cause bubonic plague from leaving the planet you really should read the book, "Friday" by Robert A. Heinlein, published in 1982, by Holt, Rhinehart and Winston of New York. The man was a visionary, and when he wrote this book a lot of what we use today is mentioned in there, before it was invented.

For you evelyn and anyone else who needs a laugh. : - )

"I'm sick of the subject, Boss, killing a rat is no problem. Stuff it into a sack. Beat the sack with an ax. Then shoot it. Then drown it. Burn the sack with the dead rat in it. Meanwhile it's mate has raised another litter of pups and you now have a dozen rats to replace it. Boss, all we've ever been able to do with rats is fight them to a draw. We never win. If we let up for a moment the rats pull ahead."

You notice she doesn't mention how to catch them rodents in the first place? I guess that is left up to the reader's imagination. LOL! : - )
Walk In Beauty!
SingingWolf