The most overlooked fact about gophers is their rapid reproduction. Homeowners who ignore a cute little gopher until it and its partner produce 60, 90, or even 100 children may need to get rid of gophers quickly.
They are small herbivores who dwell underground. Pocket gophers are also known as gophers. This is due to their pocket-like cheeks, where they kill plants and store food and nest-building materials. In addition, they have small eyes and ears.
Gophers were made to dig. The fur-lined pouches identify these tunnel-digging rodents on their cheeks, where the gophers use these reversible food pouches to carry food and nesting materials. The gopher’s anatomy is perfect for tunneling. Gophers have strong forelegs and powerful front claws. In addition, their short, fine fur doesn’t collect mud when they dig in soft, moist soil.
Because of the mess they make, you can use our guide to learn more about how to kill gophers and get them from your yard. By the end, you’ll be armed with enough ways of dealing with these pests. It can be to use a gopher trap, call a vertebrate pest control specialist, find which home remedy kills gophers, or at least eradicate gophers from your yard using a tried and tested method. (Learn How To Keep Spiders Out Of Garage)
How To Get Rid Of Gophers?
You have gophers digging up your lawn, and you’ve nearly eliminated all of your mole tunnels.
You may get rid of gophers with a variety of methods. Killing them with bleach and ammonia is one of the most popular and successful methods.
But first, here’s a quick rundown of alternative ways to get rid of gophers.
- Put a piece of chewing gum in their holes: The gum is claimed to interfere with their organs, killing them to die.
- Cats: You might try using outside cats or feral cats to eat gophers.
- Garlic, rosemary, and castor beans are examples of plants that repel gophers.
How To Kill Gophers With Bleach And Ammonia?
The dreadful odor of ammonia is a blessing in disguise, as the smell of ammonia is the last any pocket gopher will want to smell.
A mixture of bleach and ammonia produces a deadly gas known as chlorine gas, which is ideal for killing them; ammonia alone suffocates them.
Follow this brief step-by-step guide when using bleach and ammonia to kill gophers.
- Cut the hole or gopher mounds in half using a shovel.
- Fill a garden hose with water and feed it into the hole using a funnel.
- Pour a gallon of bleach down the tunnel to the gopher complex from the gopher hole.
- Then pour ammonia the same way.
- Bleach decomposes into hydrochloric acid because of this—the heavy vapor emissions produced from the homemade gopher poison sink into all the holes underground.
- Block any remaining gopher holes to prevent the gophers and odors from escaping.
Caution: Because you should never mix bleach with anything, make sure you don’t start mixing ammonia with bleach before pouring it into the gopher holes and burrow system.
Advantages of Bleach and Ammonia to Kill Gophers
- These low-cost homemade smoke bombs are probably the cheapest and most effective for all other rodents burrowing around your front yard.
- The gophers will almost certainly die.
Disadvantages of Using Bleach and Ammonia to Kill Gophers
- The vapors are highly caustic and unpleasant.
- Long-term ammonia exposure causes burning in the nose, eyes, and respiratory tract. Lung damage, blindness, and even death might result from this.
- Wear goggles to protect your eyes and gloves to protect your hands if this is something you don’t want to happen.
- Determine that the wind is blowing away in the opposite direction to reduce the chances of inhaling ammonia odors.
Alternative Ways To Keep Gophers Out Of Your Garden?
If you have issues in certain areas, line the bottom and sides of planting areas or your raised beds with chicken wire or galvanized hardware cloth.
While they have sharp teeth, this can be too much for them to gnaw through.
What plants deter gophers?
Plants can repel such as gopher spurge (Euphorbia lathyris), crown imperials, lavender, rosemary, salvia, catmint, oleander, and marigolds gophers. Instead, use these to create a border around your flower beds or vegetable garden.
Does Dawn dish soap get rid of moles?
Combine Dawn dish soap, castor oil, and water in a plastic bottle. Soak the areas that have been taken over by moles and other burrowing animals.
It’s possible that you won’t be able to get rid of them all at once. So, week after week, until they’re gone, repeat this treatment.
What is the fastest way to get rid of moles in your yard?
There are three methods to get rid of lawn moles:
- Use a pesticide like Talstar, which may be found here, to eliminate the food source for moles: insects, grubs, and worms.
- The mole must be repelled.
- To kill moles, use bait like Mole Patrol.
Do coffee grounds keep moles away?
Coffee grounds have a strong odor that will repel garden moles right away. Sprinkle fresh coffee grounds throughout the lawn and garden as a repellent or dump your brewed coffee grounds into the garden each day after preparing your daily pot of coffee.
Does bubble gum kill gophers as gopher control?
Some people believe that chewing gum or chocolate laxatives kill gophers; however, Rex Marsh, a vertebrate pest control specialist at UC Davis, gave similar treats to captive gophers and discovered that they merely developed a sweet tooth. (Learn How To Keep Raccoons Away From Chickens)
What eats a gopher?
Predators pose a significant threat to pocket gophers. Weasels and snakes, for example, devour them because they can follow them into tunnels.
Dogs and badgers dig them out of the ground, damaging plants and grass. Owls and hawks are eager to take them if pocket gophers leave their tunnels.
How to Protect Your Yard From Mole Damage
Create a vertical barrier to keep moles out of your garden: If you have a mole and a vegetable garden, voles may use the mole tunnels as a shortcut to your crops.
- Add predators:
- Remove food sources:
- Buzz them off:
- Moles hate castor oil:
Can you drown moles?
If you find a mole’s burrow, you can use your garden hose to drown it and any mole babies. Then, as the water bubbles up, it can help you identify other exits. But, of course, your soil’s porosity will impact its utility.
What is a natural mole repellent?
Planting vegetative barriers throughout the region deter moles. Daisies, marigolds, alliums, fritillaria, and castor beans are examples.
What time of day are gophers most active?
Except for breeding young, gophers are solitary creatures. Gophers are active all year, although they are most visible in the spring and fall when the soil moisture content is optimum as gophers dig.
What is the best way to use gopher poison peanuts?
The Victor Poison Peanut pellets appeal to gophers. When the poison pellets are eaten, they soon kill the gopher. The secret to success is putting the gopher bait in the right spot.
What foods are poisonous to gophers?
The gopher, being a vegetarian, enjoys peanut butter and your potatoes, carrots, roots, lawn, and plants, making peanut butter the ideal bait for catching and killing gophers.
Do moles eat poison peanuts?
Rats and mice can be baited with rodent meals, but moles are not rodents. Poison peanuts or other grain baits won’t work since moles don’t eat seeds, alfalfa pellets, or other baits used to ‘kill rodents.
How long does gopher poison take to work?
Most poisons leave you with a dead gopher within 24 hours, if not less. Any other gophers in the region will be alerted to the idea that something is wrong if the death is slow and drawn out.
Getting Rid of Gophers Naturally
You may make a cup of water with half a cup of castor oil, one teaspoon of tabasco sauce, and a few drops of peppermint oil. Shake vigorously before dipping cotton balls into the mixture. Drop these cotton balls into the active holes while wearing gloves. This is a powerful gopher repellent.
What home remedy kills gophers?
The smell of naphthalene, found in moth balls, is repulsive to Gophers, as is Tabasco sauce.
- Mix 1/2 cup of castor oil, 1 cup of water, a few drops of peppermint essential oil, and 1 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce.
- Fill the tunnels and other holes with cotton balls soaked in the mixture.
Don’t use moth balls outside your bedroom window, as even a small dose of the smell is off-putting.
Gophers hate the smell of peppermint, so it adds to this gopher control method as a natural gopher repellent to help rid your yard of subterranean rodents.
Use Plastic Bags
Small plastic bags should be purchased, crushed, and inserted into the gopher hole. Gophers chew through the plastic bags to keep moving around in their tunnels.
Within a few days of putting the bag in, you will notice a dead gopher sitting on your lawn surface.
Using Gopher Traps
Gophers eat grass, flowers, veggies, shrubs, and trees. So, the ideal bait for gophers is fresh vegetable roots and stems, or any component of their favorite plant, alfalfa.
Gophers also love carrots, celery, apples, and peanut butter. Peanut butter is easy to apply to the vertical bait pan of a snap trap.
Unlike other rodents, gophers do not need a “free sample” to get used to the trap. Instead, a gopher trap must be set below ground in the main tunnel to go from one end to the other.
Even if the gopher dislikes the food, it must pass the trap. The aroma of human sweat on the bait or trap may cause the gopher to avoid it altogether.
The greatest food is always the most attractive gopher bait. Stop irrigating your lawn as long as you can without damaging plants before laying out gopher traps, and ensure your bait is the gopher’s favorite food.
Put predator odors around desired plants in your lawn or garden if you maintain it damp.
Placing fox urine crystals around desirable plants and giving gophers a tasty last supper will help you eliminate more gophers from your lawn. (Learn How To Keep Rabbits Out Of Yard)
Another way is In a box, place a gopher trap. Bait with chicken feed or vegetable meal. Within a week of using this method, you should be able to kill at least a handful of gophers.
