charlz
Elite Member
I highly recommend the 'propane' method of elimination. I have been messing around with traps, flooding, gas bombs, getting the county to use poison etc. for two years with little success. After hearing about the 'Rodenator' (Remedies for Gophers - How to get rid of Groundhogs!) and 'Varmit Getter' (Varmit Getter) devices and seeing their prices I messed around with making my own propane device. I got sidetracked for a while and then decided to call one of the companies that will come out and propane the little bastards for you. They wanted $110/hr and figured it would take 2.5 - 3.5 hours to do my little 4.5 acre place. Naturally this put me back to making my own device. Which I did using my own torch set and some misc. junk I had laying around.
The results are unbelievable, I spent one morning working the whole place and then following up the next two mornings. Most of the places showed no activity the next two mornings. One corner of my hay field that was highly infested took all three mornings. Between the gophers digging it up and me blowing it up the whole area is shredded and has a soft feeling to it when you walk on it.
If you have the $$ and a big enough problem it is probably worth it to buy one of these devices. I don't know if rental stores would ever carry something like this but man that sure would be nice for people with pocket gopher problems.
For anybody who wants to make one and maybe blow themselves up:
I took a small round block of wood about 2.5 inches in diameter and about 3 inches long, it is actually cut from a tree I took out. The diameter makes it a snug fit in the gopher holes I had. I found a 4' piece of rubber hose and drilled a hole through the wood that I could just barely shove the hose through.
You use and oxy/acetylene set and substitute your BBQ propane tank for the acetylene. For an ignition device I used model rocket igniters, about $1 each at the hobby store. One of those electric 'spark' type igniters from a BBQ would probably be best and cheapest. I tried the push button one but it would not work over 20' of the solid phone wire (like what is in the walls in your house). So over about an inch from the hose hole I drilled a second hold and feed through a 20' piece of the solid telephone wire and put insulated alligator clips on the end.
I started out using my cutting torch (I have the smaller version) and slipping the tubing over the cutting head. This turned out to be pretty slow as the gas does not come out that fast. I then took the head off the torch and using another piece of tubing as a coupler, I hooked the torch body right to the hose going through the block.
So the process is:
Find the gopher mound and dig down till you get a clear tunnel opening
Place an igniter on the alligator clips, (I bent it back towards the block so it would not go into the dirt when you put the block in the whole)
Place the block in the hole and cover with dirt, tamp it a bit so gas doesn't leak out when filling.
Using the smaller torch set I have I used about 1/4 turn of propane and 1/2 or more of Oxygen. This is with the propane set to 7 and the Oxy set to 30.
Let run 5 minutes (found by slowing moving up one minute at a time).
Put your ear plugs in while waiting
Turn the torch off and disconnect from the hose (don't want to blow up your torch)
Move to a safe place, touch the wires to a cordless drill battery and enjoy
I went through and blew up every recent mound in all directions till I was satisfied I had gotten the whole tunnel network.
Worked like a charm. It does work better if the ground has been recently irrigated and is wet down for an inch or two.
If you have to dig down a ways make sure you fill the hole back up with dirt, I had one where I had a hole about a foot deep and some propane settled in there and it went off like a cannon No damage to anything but it was a nice reminder on how dangerous this stuff is.
BTW this is for educational purposes only, use at your own risk
Charles
The results are unbelievable, I spent one morning working the whole place and then following up the next two mornings. Most of the places showed no activity the next two mornings. One corner of my hay field that was highly infested took all three mornings. Between the gophers digging it up and me blowing it up the whole area is shredded and has a soft feeling to it when you walk on it.
If you have the $$ and a big enough problem it is probably worth it to buy one of these devices. I don't know if rental stores would ever carry something like this but man that sure would be nice for people with pocket gopher problems.
For anybody who wants to make one and maybe blow themselves up:
I took a small round block of wood about 2.5 inches in diameter and about 3 inches long, it is actually cut from a tree I took out. The diameter makes it a snug fit in the gopher holes I had. I found a 4' piece of rubber hose and drilled a hole through the wood that I could just barely shove the hose through.
You use and oxy/acetylene set and substitute your BBQ propane tank for the acetylene. For an ignition device I used model rocket igniters, about $1 each at the hobby store. One of those electric 'spark' type igniters from a BBQ would probably be best and cheapest. I tried the push button one but it would not work over 20' of the solid phone wire (like what is in the walls in your house). So over about an inch from the hose hole I drilled a second hold and feed through a 20' piece of the solid telephone wire and put insulated alligator clips on the end.
I started out using my cutting torch (I have the smaller version) and slipping the tubing over the cutting head. This turned out to be pretty slow as the gas does not come out that fast. I then took the head off the torch and using another piece of tubing as a coupler, I hooked the torch body right to the hose going through the block.
So the process is:
Find the gopher mound and dig down till you get a clear tunnel opening
Place an igniter on the alligator clips, (I bent it back towards the block so it would not go into the dirt when you put the block in the whole)
Place the block in the hole and cover with dirt, tamp it a bit so gas doesn't leak out when filling.
Using the smaller torch set I have I used about 1/4 turn of propane and 1/2 or more of Oxygen. This is with the propane set to 7 and the Oxy set to 30.
Let run 5 minutes (found by slowing moving up one minute at a time).
Put your ear plugs in while waiting
Turn the torch off and disconnect from the hose (don't want to blow up your torch)
Move to a safe place, touch the wires to a cordless drill battery and enjoy
I went through and blew up every recent mound in all directions till I was satisfied I had gotten the whole tunnel network.
Worked like a charm. It does work better if the ground has been recently irrigated and is wet down for an inch or two.
If you have to dig down a ways make sure you fill the hole back up with dirt, I had one where I had a hole about a foot deep and some propane settled in there and it went off like a cannon
No damage to anything but it was a nice reminder on how dangerous this stuff is. BTW this is for educational purposes only, use at your own risk
Charles
