Gophers

   / Gophers #1  
freewookie

freewookie

Silver Member
Joined
May 20, 2013
Messages
172
Location
Guthrie, OK
Tractor
JD GT235, DK40SE HST
They’re trying to take over alongside our driveway that runs through the middle of our pasture. Don’t want to poison because we have dogs.

What’s a good method?
 
   / Gophers #6  
freewookie said:
They’re trying to take over alongside our driveway that runs through the middle of our pasture. Don’t want to poison because we have dogs.

What’s a good method?
Click to expand...


Why won’t your dogs take care of them?


Our answer was Cats. A mama cat with kittens is great. She will Hunt and teach the kittens to hunt. We have 4 cats. No gophers or moles. Before we brought the cats up here this place was over run with gophers and moles. In less than 6 months no more mole tunnels and no more gopher mounds in the yard.

Surrounded on two sides by heavily wooded areas and gophers/ moles will always be a recurring problem. Glad to have our cats.


.
 
   / Gophers
  • Thread Starter
#7  
two_bit_score said:
Why won’t your dogs take care of them?


Our answer was Cats. A mama cat with kittens is great. She will Hunt and teach the kittens to hunt. We have 4 cats. No gophers or moles. Before we brought the cats up here this place was over run with gophers and moles. In less than 6 months no more mole tunnels and no more gopher mounds in the yard.

Surrounded on two sides by heavily wooded areas and gophers/ moles will always be a recurring problem. Glad to have our cats.


.
Click to expand...

It’s 300 yards from the house in goat fenced pasture so the dogs can’t get out there. Once we fenced it all that cut down on the yotes but the gopher population went up.
 
   / Gophers #8  
I have the best luck with cinch traps (the flag style), I have at least 3 sizes I think. They're spendy at like $18 a piece new but they work. I set 4 traps Saturday night and had two gophers in the morning and the other two traps were tripped so those guys will be harder to catch in the future...

I normally take a "gopher walk" in the mornings on the weekend, take a shotgun with me and see if there's any new holes, occasionally I'll walk up on one pushing dirt and get it...

For the traps, I don't go crazy, I just take a trowel and clear the dirt on the freshest holes, set the trap and stick it in the hole then adjust the trigger so it's on the verge of going off and put a blue flag next to it (no plants are blue, easier to see so no one drives or mows over them).

I've gotten about 10-15 gophers this year and I haven't even really tried, been a few years since I've had any in quantity... My cat won't go after them but he's got a lot of mice to go after and does a decent job. Where most of the gophers are he won't go because of the red tail hawk nest that oversees the area, and the hawk doesn't seem to get the dang things. I need to put up some predator posts so the hawks and owls can get the things...
 
   / Gophers
  • Thread Starter
#9  
rangerfredbob said:
I have the best luck with cinch traps (the flag style), I have at least 3 sizes I think. They're spendy at like $18 a piece new but they work. I set 4 traps Saturday night and had two gophers in the morning and the other two traps were tripped so those guys will be harder to catch in the future...

I normally take a "gopher walk" in the mornings on the weekend, take a shotgun with me and see if there's any new holes, occasionally I'll walk up on one pushing dirt and get it...

For the traps, I don't go crazy, I just take a trowel and clear the dirt on the freshest holes, set the trap and stick it in the hole then adjust the trigger so it's on the verge of going off and put a blue flag next to it (no plants are blue, easier to see so no one drives or mows over them).

I've gotten about 10-15 gophers this year and I haven't even really tried, been a few years since I've had any in quantity... My cat won't go after them but he's got a lot of mice to go after and does a decent job. Where most of the gophers are he won't go because of the red tail hawk nest that oversees the area, and the hawk doesn't seem to get the dang things. I need to put up some predator posts so the hawks and owls can get the things...
Click to expand...

The predator post trigger a thought. The population also increased when I took out some old posts a few years ago that lined the driveway.
 
   / Gophers #10  
Part of my yard looks like a practice area for the Armies Light Infantry. It's too late in the year to do much. I'm hoping the new barn cat will help this coming year. He has certainly laid waste to the mouse & chipmunk populations.

I've got the little type( pocket gophers ). Not the big ground hogs.
 
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