The gophers are out ......

[bucket]

And this could be a large outbreak year ....I can't bitch to the government on the strychnine ban because it has to be scientific....I am not a scientist....believe it or not....But I did see an increase in gophers last year and efforts eventually became worthless....100 feet for a mile was used to feed them from my neighbours ..cough...pasture where there was nothing to eat...

Shooting them but was hestitant to poison near his animals...

[15444]

My solution would involve renting it, a D8 with a long single shank and summerfallowing. But maybe it isn't that big a deal.

[TSIPP]

Only saw 9 gophers on Thursday and I brought home 9 for the cats.
The gophers didn’t have a chance with the 17HMR heavy barrel, i declared war on them last spring and should be pretty much gopher free this summer.
I had a hard time last spring getting the little buggers to eat poison and it was very slow shooting so I started drowning them out, one hole took about 500 gallons of water and flooded out 17 gophers On that one hole.

[Sheepwheat]

Gophers? It is minus 20 with three feet of snow. Lol, what a place we live.

[Oliver88]

Gophers? It is minus 20 with three feet of snow. Lol, what a place we live.

Guessing there isn’t snowmobile derbies going on where they are hunting gophers already.

[TSIPP]

Actually the local community had a snowmobile derby last weekend, I road my goldwing, lotsa quads and side by sides showed up.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

If the gophers are out, we can't see them under the 3 feet of snow. Forecast for -30C tonight, I suspect the gophers are smart enough to stay somewhere warmer. I checked a known porcupine den in a culvert, they have quite a tunnel down through the snow, must be a full time job keeping it open.

Still excellent snowmobiling conditions here.

[chuckChuck]

In my travels it always seems that gopher infestations are worse on continually overgrazed fields. Anyone else notice this?

They are certainly more visible in short grass but it seems as if the prefer the habitat of short grass so they can see for long distances.

They are also probably worse in areas with less nesting raptors. It would be interesting to know the science behind why infestations are high in some areas but not others.

[bucket]

In my travels it always seems that gopher infestations are worse on continually overgrazed fields. Anyone else notice this?

They are certainly more visible in short grass but it seems as if the prefer the habitat of short grass so they can see for long distances.

They are also probably worse in areas with less nesting raptors. It would be interesting to know the science behind why infestations are high in some areas but not others.

True but neither of us are scientists. ..so our opinion doesn't count.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I'm not a gopher scientist either, so I have no right to make uninformed observations, but we have almost entirely heavy grey wooded clay soil with low slopes, and the only place we have had above ground gophers ( richardson's ground squirrels) was on one slightly sandier south facing ridge. We eliminated them from there, and have never seen another one since. Apparently they don't like heavy soil, and being flooded out in every rain event.

[LEP]

In my travels it always seems that gopher infestations are worse on continually overgrazed fields. Anyone else notice this?

They are certainly more visible in short grass but it seems as if the prefer the habitat of short grass so they can see for long distances.

They are also probably worse in areas with less nesting raptors. It would be interesting to know the science behind why infestations are high in some areas but not others.

The area with the worst infestation on my farm is beside 80 acres of grass that hasn't been grazed in 25+ years. My landlady prefers to call it habitat. Every year the gophers move out into the crop as it is emerging. Probably easy pickings versus picking new growth out of the overgrown bunches of old grass.

With the gophers follows the badgers. About 15 or 20 acres are affected. Not fun harvesting lentils on this ground.

The landlady has all of her acres posted no hunting, which is fine. To get some control I use a small container of strychnine treated grain that I shake down the holes as I pick rocks. Keeps the numbers down somewhat.

I don't tell her though.