How To Get Rid Of Gophers Humanely

Small as they are, gophers can be a serious nuisance. The good news, though, is that you can get rid of them for good humanely. Despite what all the rodent poisons on the market imply, killing gophers isn't a long-term solution. There will always be more to replace the ones you killed. To get rid of gophers for any length of time, you'll need to make your property either impossible for gophers to get into or so unappealing that they stay away voluntarily. Doing this is easier than it may sound.

How To Get Rid Of Gophers Humanely

Get them out and keep them out

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How To Get Rid Of Gophers Humanely

If gophers are only a problem in your flower and vegetable beds, try building raised beds. These not only make gardening easier, but when protected from beneath, they can also keep burrowing animals out. When you build the bed, make it gopher-proof by first laying down a sheet of hardware cloth to cover the bottom of the bed area. Another trick is to install rhizome barriers around your planting beds. These underground barriers are usually used to contain rapidly spreading plants, but they also keep out gophers.

How To Get Rid Of Gophers Humanely

How To Get Rid Of Gophers Humanely

Gophers that are eating up your lawn, on the other hand, can be caught unharmed with live traps designed for small rodents and moved to a wilderness area. Unless you're experienced at live trapping rodents, though, it's best to leave this one to the professionals. Environmentally friendly pest control companies like Animal Problems? Inc., of Florida are licensed to safely remove a variety of animals, including gophers.

To keep gophers from returning once you get rid of them, consider building a barrier around your property. Because gophers can't climb, a solid one-foot-high fence buried six to 12 inches into the ground around the perimeter of your property is enough to stop gophers from getting in.

Offend their sensibilities

The smells from your yard and garden are what attract gophers and you can get rid of the gophers again by altering those smells. Products like Mole-otov Cocktail made by Not Tonight Deer! or Whole Control Spray by Nixalite use non-toxic ingredients to make gophers favorite foods unappetizing so the rodents no longer have a reason to hang around your garden. To use these products, just attach the container to a garden hose, turn the water on and spray the repellent over the gopher-populated area. Mole-Med by Gardens Alive, another rodent repellent, can be spread on the lawn either wet or dry.

Shake things up

Gophers have a very keen sense of hearing and sensitivity to ground vibration, so they'll avoid areas where there are constant sounds and movements in the ground. Installing devices that create these annoyances is a cheap and easy way how to get rid of gophers.

Sonic rodent repelling units for the garden are self-contained spikes that can be inserted into the ground to create noises so irritating to the gophers that they stay away. These sounds are so subtle, though, that not even dogs are bothered by them. One of the most popular devices is the Sonic Molechaser from Molechasers International. The smaller model can keep an area of approximately 11,250 sq. ft. (1045 sq. meters) gopher-free and the larger one covers up to 13,500 sq. ft. (approx. 1250 sq. meters). There's also a solar-powered model. This model saves batteries, but due to the solar panel, it's a little more visible than the electronic types and it only covers up to 7,500 sq. feet (approx. 700 sq. meters).

Another sound gophers avoid is that of their predators, owls and hawks. Electronic birdcall imitators like the Bird Sound Device available from U-Spray, Inc. can scare off gophers for 10,000 sq. ft. (930 sq. meters) around. The Bird Sound Device is triggered by a motion detector, so to use it to get rid of gophers, place it beside a light at night when the gophers are active.

How to get rid of gophers the all-natural way

Faking the sound of predatory birds can work well, but the real thing is even better. Barn owls are one of the gophers' main predators, so if this bird is native to your area, put up a barn owl box on your property to attract a natural gopher prevention system. The only drawback is that barn owls look for new homes only in the spring, so you may not be able to attract one immediately.

If you're looking for an environmentally friendly way to get rid of gophers that are snacking on your lawn and garden, you've got several affordable and easy-to-use options. While not everyone can get a barn owl to drop by, plant barriers and smell- or sound-based gopher repellents can work just as well.

How To Get Rid Of Gophers Humanely