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About Gophers & How To Protect Your Lawn And Gardens From Destruction

About Pocket Gophers

Gophers are common in both North and Central America. In California, there are two prominent species the Botta and Thomomys bottae. These gophers are often referred to as pocket gophers due to their pouches found on both sides of their mouths. These furry little pouches are used to store food or materials for building their nests.

Pocket gophers are in the rodent family measuring 5 to 7 inches in length minus the tail. They range in color from a grayish brown to brown. Because their habitats are always underground, they have features to help them navigate. They have tiny ears and eyes, large incisors, or teeth, that are always visible, and very sensitive facial hairs. They use their large curved claws on their front paws and powerful shoulder muscles for digging tunnels and building their extensive burrow systems. Their lips will close behind the front teeth to keep dirt out of their mouths when digging.

Because they mainly live underground, you will only know they are around by examining the mounds. Typically, gophers will make 1 to 3 mounds each day. Dirt is pushed out to the surface from the tunnels forming mounds. Since the tunnels are at an angle, the mounds will form a crescent or horseshoe shape. Moles, on the other hand, form mounds that are shaped like a volcano. If you find activities taking place around the mound, you will know there are gophers.

Gophers live solo lives except during the breeding season and will react violently toward another gopher if it enters the burrow. Pocket gophers inhabit various areas of the state except for very dry areas found in the desert region, in very rocky areas, or in high mountain meadows.

The Burrow System

The burrows they live in can cover up to 2,000 square feet. Their burrows measure approximately 2 to 3 1/2 inches in diameter, the feeding tunnels measure around 6 to 12 inches, and the sleeping and food storage chambers are approximately 6 feet deep.

The average burrow system includes a main tunnel for food storage, sleeping chambers, and some lateral tunnels are for feeding and removing soil from the burrow.

Gophers will seal the burrow system to maintain the temperature and humidity and keep other gophers out of their system. Every 24 hours, gophers will travel through the system to look for damage or intruders.

Even if you do not see any signs of fresh mounds, gophers do not hibernate and therefore are active during all hours of the day and all year round.

Two Gophers in Field

Gopher Damage

Pocket gophers can cause a great deal of damage when looking for food in gardens, agricultural crops, and lawns. They can damage trees by girdling trees meaning they will strip the bark around it and eventually kill the tree as trees need their bark for nutrients. Gophers will go after plastic water lines and irrigation systems. Their mounds can make it difficult to harvest hay and grain crops. Their mounds will lead to the invasion of weeds while their burrows will weaken ditch banks and canals. Irrigation water redirected through the tunnels can lead to the erosion of soil.

Legal Classifications

According to the California Department of Fish and Game, gophers are non-game mammals. If they are causing damage, the owner or tenant of the property or their employees can use traps and poison to get rid of them. Keep in mind, any poison bait must be registered for that use in California.

Gopher Above Grass

Gopher Diseases

Because of their solitary underground habitats, there are people who think they can spread diseases. There are absolutely no cases of diseases spreading to humans. Like other rodents, they can be infected for a number of reasons. That said, if a gopher shows any unusual signs such as being above ground for a long period of time, they should be avoided. If you find what you think is a dead gopher handle with extreme care. Due to their large teeth and aggressive manner, they can inflict very painful bites if they are still alive. Keep your children, pets, and friends away from the gopher, and call your local forestry agency for help.

Controlling Pocket Gophers

There are several techniques for controlling gophers. What technique will work best for you will depend on the area of land you are dealing with and the number of gophers living there. If you are living next to a large area that is vacant and it's irrigated, the chances of infestation are more than likely. Continual maintenance might be required so contact a private pest control company or the county agricultural commissioner's office. This is probably the better choice versus trying to do it by yourself.

If trapping and killing gophers is not something you are comfortable with, here are some excellent humane choices using gopher barriers that can be very effective and worth looking into The barriers listed below are excellent choices for keeping gophers and plants separated permanently.

Gopher Baskets

This is probably not a great choice for large projects but wire mesh baskets might be what you need for your plants. Place these baskets around individual plants to protect your prized plants. This is excellent for protecting your rose bushes, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and succulents. The baskets are available in many sizes and are made of galvanized mesh or chicken wire. Gopher baskets will last for a long time. 

Gopher Mounds in Field

Plants Gophers Do Not Like

Gardeners Take Note! There are certain plants that gophers do not like and will not eat. So go ahead and plant as many as you want!

There are many plants that will drive away gophers and keep them gone. Some of these plants include lavender, catmint known as nepeta cataria, rosemary, gopher spurge, oleander, crown imperials, marigolds, and don't forget salvia. Some of these plants are absolutely beautiful and will add an incredible look while protecting your garden. You can create borders around your flower beds and vegetable gardens. On top of that, some of these plants will drive off insects like mosquitoes! Great Insect Repellents

Products That Serve As Repellents

Scented repellents can either do the trick or turn out useless. The problem is, sometimes it's difficult to get enough of the product deeply into all the holes to serve its purpose. You must be able to get it into every hole you see. Some of these scented products include:

Pine Disinfectant – Just soak a rag with this product and shove it down the hole.

Chili Powder – Sprinkle the powder down into the hole as far as you possibly can.

Peppermint Oil - Take cotton balls and soak them, then place them in the hole.

Sheets Of Fabric Softener - Take the sheets and put them in the hole.

Garlic Stakes – Take the stakes with garlic oil and place them throughout your yard in the gopher's hole.

For those who prefer to trap and kill gophers, here is a summary. Please keep in mind, whether through humane methods or not-so-humane steps, when dealing with gophers neither is permanent. Also, show caution when using chemicals. Chemicals can get into the ground and could possibly cause health issues for you, your family, your pets, and friends.

To date, there have not been any proven cases that repellents will drive out gophers and protect your gardens and landscapes.

Before setting up traps, you will have to know where the majority of activity is coming from. When looking for active mounds, look for darker soil or soil that is moist. If you can't seem to tell the difference, take your foot and push over the mounds so they are level with the ground then come back the next day to see if new soil has been pushed up from the burrow.

Placing The Traps

You can use a probe to find the main run of the burrow system. The probe can be a simple metal rod with a handle, a long-shafted screwdriver, or a commercially available device. Check with your local Agricultural Commissioner's office for any devices that might be available for you. You should start your probe from the plugged side of the mound approximately 8 to 12 inches from the plug. As you continue to probe in the soil, there should be a sudden drop or no resistance. This should be the main run that is normally located 2 to 12 inches under the ground. Once you have located the right place, take a shovel and dig up the area. Set the traps facing in opposite directions at the bottom of the burrow and make sure there are no obstructions to interfere with the trap's mechanism.

The traps should be attached to stakes to prevent them from falling into the burrow. You do not have to bait the traps but you must cut off as much light as possible from coming into the burrow. If you don't, the gopher will try and fill the open area with soil and set off the traps. To close the opening, you can use soil, dirt clods, plywood, cardboard, or other materials. Take fine soil and sift it around the edges to make sure the light is not penetrating. Check the traps every 24 hours and reset them if needed. If there is no activity for 3 days, find another place to set the traps.

Gopher in Sunshine

Toxicants

For the record, toxins and toxicants are not the same. Toxicants are man-made and harmful to living organisms while toxins are poisonous and produced naturally by living organisms.

Using toxicants is a way of controlling large numbers of gophers covering large areas of ground at one time. There are several products that fall into two categories – baits and fumigants. Here's the breakdown:

Toxic bait has been proven to be quite successful at controlling gophers in large areas. For the best results, it will depend on the placement of the bait in the burrows. This bait must be placed in the main burrow run. Placing the bait in a lateral tunnel will not give you the results you are looking for but could be pushed up to the soil on the surface.

There are two kinds of bait available at this time, strychnine and anticoagulants.

Strychnine is a single feeding bait applied to the main burrow after using a probe to locate it. Place the bait as recommended on the label. Because Strychnine is extremely toxic, if any is spilled, it must be cleaned up immediately to protect children and animals.

Anticoagulants are used in the same way but apply multiple feedings to control gophers and this is lower in toxicity.

Baits

Other Thoughts For Gopher Expulsion

As discussed earlier in this article, there are gopher barriers and fences that have proven to be quite successful. Other things to consider are as follows:

Raised flower beds can be protected by using a layer of 3/4 inch galvanized hardware cloth under the bed and securing it to a wood frame (2 x 6) before filling it with soil.

Apply 6 to 8 inches with a diameter of 1 inch or more around your underground utility cables, or sprinkler lines. It might discourage gophers from gnawing.

Natural Controls

Gophers like other animals in the wild have their own enemies and gophers are no exception. Their predators can bring down a low level of the gopher population but not much more. Their predators include owls, snakes, coyotes, cats, and dogs.

Sounds, Bells & Whistles

There are more than a few devices that send out sounds or vibrations claiming to frighten off animals like gophers but to no avail. Gophers do not frighten easily considering they are living underground and hear many loud sounds like lawnmowers, construction trucks, etc. Considering the sounds these gophers hear every day, choosing a sound device will be of little to no use. Keep in mind, it's highly discouraged to come up with home remedies that probably won't work, could be harmful, and are probably illegal.