i use a trapper to get rid of the son of a guns. I’ve had up to 89 removed in a year. I’ve reclaimed my property for riding and horse use, however. They do not seem to reinhabit areas when horses are put on them.
ETA: i called my local game commission to get the name of a licensed trapper in my area.
We have terminators to come regularly to kill off grubs in the yard, and with the grubs gone, the gophers move out.
As to those in pasture. it seems to be true that they hate concussion from hooves. We turned our horses out to the gopher infested pasture. We had no choice. The field is too large to do anything. All the horses fare really well, and the gopher mounts have drastically decreased over the years.
Just came upon this thread. It sounds exactly like my situation and I am in WA as well … on the east side. It is definitely pocket gophers that are on my property. I am so depressed because I moved my horses from my boarding situation with arenas, etc., and have been assuming I would ride in my field. My pasture is approximately 5 acres and it is covered now with gopher mounds. I have heard from someone in the area that they trap them successfully with Gopher Hawks, but that there are so many in their ONE acre pasture that they are still having to constantly do it. Has anyone tried those stakes that supposedly emit a sound that pushes the gophers away? If that worked, I might be able to use it for at least an area that I designate as my riding zone. Would love to hear from others!! Thanks.
Hi Rainier,
I used GopherHawk traps to successfully re claim most of my pastures. I ended up purchasing about 10 of them along with a tulip auger for my cordless drill to set them and a camp shovel to dig up sprung traps. I stopped counting at around 70 gophers and I hated every minute of it. Not all of those caught were cleanly dispatched. It was a lot of work and unpleasant to boot but it was effective. I didn’t get anywhere with box traps, flares, or exhaust gas by comparison.
This last spring and most of the summer I was completely out of commission for various reasons and apparently I have dozens of new gophers to deal with so it’s a never ending process if your pastures are “quieter” than your neighbors. I read somewhere that it takes roughly three years for a tunnel system to collapse so perhaps if I had been more consistent they would have been slower to re occupy.
One helpful addition to my gopher control has been really aggressively dragging the mounds. If I can level the area before the rainy season and spot seed my pasture stays smoother and nicer overall. The tractor helps collapse the shallow tunnels as well.
Completely random aside…I watched with complete fascination one winter afternoon as a blue heron very expertly tweezered out and ate three gophers from my largest pasture. It stood stock still for what seemed like hours over the mound…then bam…down the hatch! I was a fan before but what a neat bird. Now if I could just rent a flock of them…
Aghhhhhh! If it’s moles - and it sounds like it is - the horses will be fine. And the moles are there eating slugs and larva from other pests like Japanese Beetles. Leave them alone and they’ll move on when they clean out the area. Again your horses will be fine. (fox, coyotes, and handy cats will dig out the moles occasionally).
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