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Pocket Gophers Gone Wild
Scooter, you can't get enough water from a garden hose to flood them. You need at least a 2" line to get enough water down there at once. See if a neighbour has a big spray tank or something you can borrow.
You also need to put a LOT of water down to get them, they have little raised dens along the tunnels to deal with rainwater, etc., gassing them is the best way.
If you can get a V-8 powered vehicle close enough, put a hose from the exhaust into one hole at the far end of the field and plug every hole you can find except one at the other end. An hour of fast idle will kill a pretty good sized colony.
Best of luck.
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Pocket Gophers Gone Wild
Murf, the pitchfork traps work good for moles. I've got pocket gophers who holes are typically 12-24 inches below the surface. My dog kills moles no problem. They don't stand a chance against her psychotic need to kill. She struggles with the gophers due to the depth of their holes and their extensive tunnel network. They spend the majority of their time undergound.
I tried the exhaust trick. Didn't faze them. True pocket gophers are used to living in low oxygen. Using water on pocket gophers is hard due to their extensive tunnel network. If you look at the research done, the tunnel systems can cover an incredible area.
The traps I used had two interlaced fingers that came apart called a Macabee trap. They are triggered by a plate when a gopher moves through a tunnel and they rotate about 90 degrees in impale the gopher in the sides. I've only gotten one gopher with this method.
The best method I found was the poison. It's about $5 and basically is poison impregnated food. If you have mounds with no clear hole, then you have pocket gophers. They plug the end of the hole. You can use a skinny rod to poke around the dirt mound or just clear away the dirt and you'll see the plug. Use the rod to poke through the plug and find the hold direction. Then you can dig that up to place traps or food. You'll need to follow that short tunnel as it's a branch to the main tunnel. The main tunnel is where you want to place the trap or poison.
They are very warry critter that are very sensitive to having their holes messed with. If you mess with a section and you didn't kill them, they'll just block it off and never use it again. Of course, that means they need new tunnels, further driving you towards madness.
I can appreciate Hardwood's dad. If I had the D4 bulldozer I've agreed to buy from my wife's uncle back in December, I'd have torn up the entire 8 acres of land that is not in CRP. The yard would have been toast and the wife mad, but the gophers would have been dead.
The link is to the Iowa State extension office gopher info. It shows how their tunnel systems work and how their mounding system works. Study your enemy. Know how he thinks. It also includes several traps at least one of which you can make yourself. Good luck. The weather is nice tonight so I think I'll go feed some gophers.
Here gopher gopher!! Free food!!
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If exhaust don't work, I'd experiment with propane injected down into the holes. Start with small timed releases and work up to the big bang principle. One of those deck/porch torches and safety goggles. Be careful!!
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Okay, stupid question. As far as gassing them out, are exhaust gases “heavier” or “lighter” than air. Will if “flow” into the network of tunnels like water? Or must it be forced.
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As far as I know, exhaust gases are heavier than air. If you stick a hose in the hole for a distance and cover the access hole, the exhaust gases are driven into the underground tunnels from the engine running. It takes time to get the critters out. Sometimes they move within the tunnels further away from the point you're filling with exhaust. You sometimes have to move to different locations and block whatever passages that you can to corner them and force'em out.
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Scooter, carbon monoxide is heavier than air, if introduced in sufficient quantities, thus my comment about a big engine, it will displace ALL oxygen in the tunnel system.
To be effective though you need to fill from one end to the other, plugging the holes in the center of the colony. After enough time to fill the tunnels plug the few holes you used as fillers and vents. This will trap them below ground with no oxygen to breath, they WILL suffocate.
The propane/oxygen is also effective, usually it kills by burying them alive, they either suffocate right away or trying to dig their way out.
Best of luck.
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Pocket Gophers Gone Wild
Remember, gophers are satan's minions. They are devious and hard to kill. Good luck.
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As Murf said CO is heavier than air, but HOT CO will rise so when you pump exhaust gas in their it should penetrate the passages pretty well.
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If "gophers are satan's minions" I guarantee, a Jack Russell terrier (terror?) will "put the fear of God in them".
My little fellow can, and has, much to my wife's dismay, run down a wild hare before it can make it to cover.
They have a particular instinctive hatred for rodents though, he runs so fast after a squirell that when he gets to the tree he follows it right up, several 'red rodents' have met their end when they went only a short distance up a tree and stopped to turn around to chatter at him. Getting down is another story.
Best of luck.
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Murf, that would be a site to see!! I thought my dog was psychotic about killing rodents. Geez. Course, she almost got the neightbors cat. The cat never came back after that incident. Maybe I should get a Jack Russell... But I already have to hook up the loader on the 4310 and go around this weekend and fill in the potholes the dog has dug going after gophers. I don't know what I'd do with two dogs that do that.
My other dog is a black lab. He's not the brightest student on the special bus. He killed a rock once. That rock wasn't going anywhere. He guarded that rock for at least 30 minutes just in case it moved again.
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09-16-2004, 12:22 
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