Organic Percussion Pest Control of Gophers
What pest can destroy your garden, cause a tripping hazard, and damage underground utilities and irrigation?
The answer is gophers, and these destructive rodents are a headache for homeowners whose yards and gardens have been attacked by the gophers’ trademark move: miles of tunnels, unsightly bumps, holes in the ground and half-eaten crops and landscaping.
Gophers live amongst approximately 70 percent of households in the United States, and because they do not hibernate, they are a year-round problem—though they are progressively more of nuisance when the temperatures climb.
During the spring, the gopher population jumps, and the summer heat causes these rodents to become more active and build mounds. Mound-building activity reaches its peak in the spring and fall, and gopher populations also peak in the spring.
It takes less than a year for female gophers to be able to give birth. During this time, females can give birth to litters between two and seven, and in ideal environments—with a gestation period of only 18 to 50 days—a female gopher can bear offspring up to three times a year. Each of these young will reach about half their size by summer, then leave to burrow, where each can dig tunnels underground between 200 and 2000 square feet and move as much as two-and-a-half tons of soil!
The Damage Gophers Cause
Due to their burrowing nature, gophers are considered a big nuisance, especially for farmers and gardeners. Farmers need to keep a close eye on mounds of turned up earth that can break their equipment. Irrigation and sprinkler systems are also at risk with gopher populations, which tend to take residence on farmland with populations from six to 60 gophers per acre! The vast land and underground water supply make a tempting climate for gopher populations.
In addition to the agricultural headaches of the gopher burrows, gophers are also infamous for eating crops and landscaping, making them a headache for hobby gardeners. Gophers love to gnaw continually because their front teeth never stop growing. They will chew and chisel on plants and underground equipment to keep their incisors whittled down to a manageable size.
Gophers can also carry harmful diseases such as hantavirus, leptospirosis, and plague like other rodents. And while they rarely interact with humans, they can transmit disease, fleas and ticks to outdoor pets.
Gopher Control
Though gophers spend most their time underground, clues of their residency can be spotted on the surface. Damage to crops and plants, ground level changes, freshly dug up earth, and 12-18 inch wide by 4-6 inch high mounds are all signals of an active gopher residency.
Natural predators of the gopher such as hawks, owls, badgers, coyotes, foxes, bobcats and weasels will help keep populations down, however, sometimes mitigation is necessary to prevent damage to crops and underground systems.
The key to any kind of gopher control is to understand how gophers operate. Gophers dig burrows as a way to travel from feed location to feed location. A burrow will stretch underground from roughly 200 – 2,000 square feet and 2 ½” – 3 ½” in diameter, with nesting and food chambers that may reach a depth of six feet. The main tunnel starts about 12”-18” away from an aboveground soil plug and will typically run 6”-12” below the surface, with tunnels branching off the main.
But the burrow system is complex, and may have up to 200 yards of tunnels. That’s why professional mitigation, with a probe, is often necessary to help resolve the pest problem. The battle against the gopher is out of sight, and underground in the burrows, where the average person would have difficulty knowing when and where to place traps, repellant or poison. Not to mention, poison may not be an option near crops, agriculture, cattle, pets or water.
Central Oregon Pest Solutions has an organic solution for dealing with gophers and their burrows called percussion mitigation. We use percussion to naturally and organically rid of these pests without the use of chemicals or poisons. So if your property in Bend, Redmond, Sisters, Prineville, Madras, Lapine or the outskirts of Central Oregon require pest control and removal of gophers, call us to find out more about our percussion mitigation practices: 541-600-9008.
These pests may destroy your garden, cause a tripping hazard, and damage underground utilities and irrigation, but they don’t have to continue to be a pest with organic percussion gopher mitigation by our team of pest C.O.P.S. at Central Oregon Pest Solutions pest control service.
