Subject: Eliminating pocket gophers

From: Kenneth Fricke <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 07:42:52 -0800

Anyone know how I can eliminate pocket gophers from my garden?  They are 
feasting on my strawberries faster than I am.
           KEN
           0  0
            <>

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From: mrubin@gallium (Mark Rubin)
Date: 22 Feb 1996 06:01:02 GMT

Kenneth Fricke ([email-masked]) wrote:
: Anyone know how I can eliminate pocket gophers from my garden?  They are 
: feasting on my strawberries faster than I am.
:            KEN
:            0  0
:             <>

Well, heres some things I've tried that didn't work.

1- put garden hose down hole and attempted to fill burrow with water. 
Burrow must have been miles long.  Hose ran for hours and water never
filled hole.

2- bait.  They ignored it.

3- Lawnmower exhaust.  I put a hose on the end of the lawnmower muffler,
put the other end down the gopher hole, and started the mower.  They I
adjusted the choke so the mower was putting out smoke.  I pumped smoke
into the gopher hole for 45 minutes.  Smoke was coming up all over my
neighbors yard (extensive interconnected tunneling).  AFter two hours, the
gophers came back.

One thing that worked - old fashioned gopher traps.  Find the main tunnel
and dig into it.  Then put two traps inside, one going each way.  Then
cover up the hole you dug with a board and throw some dirt over it (keeps
the light out of the tunnel).  I've caught several this way.  Some people
say to leave a hole in the board to a little light gets in.  Makes them
come to find the hole and close it up.

Mark Rubin

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From: [email-masked] (DGholston)
Date: 22 Feb 1996 02:06:14 -0500

Gophers are a prennial problem.  You can trap them, poison them or fence
them out by lining your flower beds, vegetable beds, etc. with chicken
wire or something similar (I prefer half inch aviary wire).  Larger
individual plants such as fruit trees, roses, etc. can be planted in wire
cylinders or baskets made of the same wire.

Don Gholston
California Rare Fruit Growers