Killer Gophers from Outer Space.

Do you have any dogs? Aren't some dogs trained to go after burrowing creatures? I remember from the dog shows, their tails are extra strong so the hunters can drag them back out by their tails....

Amy

One of the things we used to do, to take an electrical cord. Those Electricals do have an use.
Take one lead and solder it to a copper dowel. Wrap electrical tape on one end. Plug the cord into the socket, and push the dowel into the ground up to the tape. With an heavy infestation, make several.
In a few days, they leave completely. The electricity apparently irritates them.
Take powdered potassium cyanide and put it into a lawn spreader. Spread this thickly over the entire lawn.
Even if they come back, they die off in the burrows. It doesn't smell too badly. A few days. Keep putting potassium cyanide all over the lawn for a few years untill the level is really built up. No more Gophers from space.
Just make sure you do not lick your fingers after spreading the lawn.

You might go to the Dollar store and get a couple large jugs of Ammonia. If you mix it 50/50 with water and apply it down a few of the holes with a weed sprayer that has a hose and nozzle they may look for a new residence. This is a sure fire cure for a colony of bats that like to take up residence in attics and around cracks in chimneys, ect. The fumes will last for several days and the little critters are left with 2 choices, LEAVE, or , DIE. The migration will probably start before you finish your first application. Ammonia will also flush out any snakes that like gopher burrows also , so, keep a close watch behind you !!!

Holy moly Jamie, you really have the gopher colony from hell in your yard. Girl, if you wear pointy heeled cowboy boots you'll break an ankle. First off, those are not mole holes so forget about mole control methods. Moles are actually much harder to control but much less numerous too *L*. You should try to place your black hole traps on a section of the run that is fairly gentle in angle and you may have to set one in each direction if the tunnel goes both ways from where you intersect it because you don't know if the critter is in front of or in back of the trap. The wire does not cut them in half and they may be pretty feisty when you pull out the trap so bring a stick to whack'em with. Make sure the catch loop lies just along the edge of the trap when set and the trigger wire just barely engages the hole in the trigger bar so it fires off real easy. A major trick is to make sure no light gets into the trap. The trap folks make a hole in the back to let in light which is stupid because gophers are negatively phototrophic and will push a load of dirt ahead of them into the trap to close off the light and spring it on the dirt. They'll do that plenty enough without the light hole.You want them venturing all the way into the trap so no light. A good way to solve that problem and increase trap success is to put a round of carrot into the whole. That shuts out the light and baits the gophers into the trap. Also you should tether all your traps or else cats, skunks, coyotes, coons etc will drag them off. And, flag them so you can find them easily with a flashlight after dark because you want to check them and reset before bed and first thing in the AM. That way you double your catch. If they get filled with dirt, that's a sign of busy gophers so keep trying in that same hole. If no activity over night or in the evening, change locations. Sometimes they'll block the tunnel when you place the trap and quit using that run. Trapping works pretty well. I've actually exhausted the gopher supply on an acre of so around the ranch house with just eight traps in just a few weeks trapping. The ammonia technique might kill or move the gophers but it also kills good critters in the burrows and will kill plants at those concentrations so my choice would be not to do that.......Mel

"eDog's Gopher Removal Service"........could be a second income! i think Sadie would love it...chasing the gophers, i mean, not the FRB shipping.

KD

Hey Dog,
I'd love to borrow Sadie for a week or so, I'd love to borrow 10 Sadies for a week.

Jamie, just pour some gas down the hole and flip some lit matches at the holes, throw some bbq sauce inthe holes and mmmm mmmm bbq gopher....

Flash powder works great, just be vewwwy vewwwy caweful, the concussion jellies their insides.
Make sure you are not close, cause it can also jelly your outsides. (static electricity will also ignite flash powder, so it is not something to play with if you don't know what you are doing)

AKA - kids dont try this at home

Tony

Well, this is going to sound very simplistic (and labor intensive), but fairly cheap. After a gopher hole caused our well to be contaminated, which was NOT fun, and cost a small bundle! (They had to pull our well pipes up, replace the pump which shut down due to the sand caused from the gopher breaching our water source). Plus the inconvenience of no drinkable water for 2 weeks until it was tested OK...
We poured bleach down the well pit and all the gopher holes, sprayed bleach on the surface with a power sprayer thing. Generic clorox, less than $1 a gallon. Killed the grass, but it's not as bad as other things. Then we rototilled every week. Yep, we did, around the perimeter. Once a week, for about 4-5 weeks? Then we left it for a few weeks. No new holes. So we did it again. Then, raked and planted buffalo grass. Got lots of weeds, sandburs, etc.
But the gophers left. Gophers eat roots and such! No food source, no gophers. They get the idea.
gardening.yardener.com/AboutGophers.html

Hope this helps. Unfortunately, they will probably just move outside of your fence, and come back again later. But you can refer to the website above, and plant things they supposedly don't like.
Good luck!

K