How to Get Rid of Gophers

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If Popeye the sailor man is real, his nemesis wouldn’t be Brutus, but a gopher. Popeye would obviously need to protect all his spinach from these plant-eating pests. Gophers could easily transform his spinach garden into a barren wasteland. If Popeye’s spinach can really provide a surge of energy, then Popeye would have more headaches trying to get rid of the more powerful gophers.

Kidding aside, gophers are burrowing rodents that enjoy digging up moist soil, and there is no better example of moist soil than a well-cared for garden or plantation. This is where gophers become a menace for many farmers and tenders who grow vegetables on their property. They are also known to tear into and destroy well-manicured lawns and golf courses.

Gophers are well-represented in many classic cartoons (like "Popeye" or "Goofy Gophers"). They create dens beneath the garden soil and start pulling above-ground plants into their burrows. These rodents are active all year round, night and day. They do not hibernate, which is why their mission is to store a lot of food for the winter months.

During winter, they hide underground and consume all their accumulated food. Farmers, of course, grow crops in summer or spring to harvest them before wintertime. It’s devastating for all that hard work to just end up in a gopher tunnel.

What’s worse, they are fierce defenders of their established territory. Gophers are known to bite whenever they are provoked and cornered. A common misconception is that there is more than one gopher in a single garden. In fact, male gophers are so territorial that it’s very unusual to have more than one gopher residing in a yard. Studies indicate that one gopher can create 70 mounds per month in a particular area.

Many people are unsure whether they’re dealing with a gopher or a mole. One technique is to study the mound on the soil. If the mound resembles a fan shape, it’s certainly a gopher. If you see small clusters of dirt hills, then you’re dealing with a mole. If there is dirt piling up around your lawn or garden, chances are, a gopher is already residing there.

There are many ways to eliminate gophers or drive them away. The method you follow will depend on how aggressive the gopher is and perhaps, your personal sensitivity towards small mammals.

Gopher Fencing

Gopher fencing is a method with limited practicality because there are some pocket gophers that can dig as deep as six feet. However, gopher fences provide a degree of protection by preventing the rodents from easily penetrating a particular area.

Gopher fences are a great idea for valuable plots that house ornamental shrubs and trees. Since gophers are innate burrowers, setting up this fence is far from ordinary. To install a gopher fence, follow these instructions.

Dig a two-foot deep trench around your plot’s perimeter.

Start lining the trench by burying a 1 to ½ inch chicken wire, mesh or galvanized hardware cloth. The hardware cloth must at least 18 inches beneath the ground.

Here’s the tricky part: bend the bottom of the fence outwards at a horizontal 90-degree angle. The apron of wire is bent outwards so that it would face a digging gopher. Make sure that the bent “bottom” wire is at least six feet.

Be sure that the fence is at least two feet away from plants to avoid root injury.

For newly-planted seedlings, you can buy cylindrical plastic “Vexar” mesh tubes and place them over entire plants. Be sure to include the bare roots.

Your fence should reach at least a foot above ground, or else the gopher can easily climb over your fence.

Flood and Whack!

This is one of the least toxic but lethal ways to get rid of gophers (even moles). Follow these steps to use the flood and whack method, but remember, it’s not for the faint of heart.

Locate the gopher’s main runway by digging a hole deep into the burrow. After digging, set the shovel aside, close to you (you’ll know why later).

Insert the garden hose into it and turn the water on.

Keep the water running for no less than 15 minutes, because gopher tunnel systems are often complicated, reaching 1200 square feet.

Pay special attention to other burrows so that you can whack the panicked gopher.

Fumigation

This is a method of pest control done by pest control professionals to suffocate or poison pests within their hiding places or areas. It’s best if a professional can do this for you. Before trying this yourself, consult your local conservation officer for valuable advice. Here’s how it’s commonly done.

With the use of a shovel or a spade, open the burrow and clear out the debris.

Insert a pipe, large and long enough to be used for pouring aluminum pellets deep into the burrow, enough to reach the runway. Once you’ve placed the pellets inside, pull out the pipe.

Since this is “gassing,” cover the burrow entrance with soil and make sure it’s packed tightly so that you’re sure the gases are trapped.

It’s best if you curl up a newspaper ball and plug it in the hole before you cover the entrance with dirt. This will prevent the pellets from being buried under the soil, releasing the gas properly inside the burrow.

Repeat the process on every mound you find until all the aluminum phosphide pellets are displaced.

Soon, the gopher should die inside the tunnels.

Rodenticides or Toxicants

If the aluminum pellets happens to yield less than desirable results, you can try using actual rodenticides (special pesticides for burrowing rodents). You can buy these chemicals at any hardware or garden supply store. However, you would need to secure a permit if you intend to buy many of them. The most popular rodenticide is strychnine-laced barley. Follow these steps to use rodenticide.

The pack consists of a sharp, syringe-like hollow pipe that you jam into the gopher’s tunnel.

You then deposit the poison seeds through the pipe.

Finally, seal the hole you made by covering it with dirt.

One of the disadvantages of rodenticides is the waiting time. You may not be certain if a gopher actually died until several days later. This causes a bit of frustration for people who can’t afford to wait for results. Time is often the concern when it comes to poisons for eradicating gophers.

Trapping Gophers

This is perhaps messier, yet one of the most effective methods. If done the proper way, you don’t have to deal with fences, poisons or a water hose. The most sought-after gopher traps are Victor, Nash or even the Death Clutch Gopher Trap. These contraptions are very effective during summer or springtime when gophers create mounds more often. Expect a bloody encounter.

Locating the main passageways is always the first step. Main burrows often have two tunnels leading in opposite directions. It’s important that you’re able to determine where those tunnels are by studying the burrow hole. You can also set traps on freshly made mounds.

You can easily locate the tunnels by poking the mounds with a metal pole. You can be certain you’ve found a tunnel when the pole feels like it has dropped through something, about 2-3 inches. Mark the spot and get a shovel.

Dig the mark until you clearly see the floor of the gopher’s runway. Clear the debris so that your trap can be set on both sides of the tunnel. Once the traps are in position, tie twine to each trap you set. Tie the other end of the twine to a post. It’s easier if you drive the post into the ground that’s close to the mound.

Cover the hole, not with dirt but with a board that’s obviously larger than the hole you created. Place some dirt at the board edges to prevent any light from seeping through the sides. This is important because gophers abandon a tunnel whenever light is present.

Consider relocating your trap if no gopher is found after 3-4 days. Repeat the same process.

Carbon Monoxide Fumigation

This is like the famous suicide scene from the movie “The Client,” except that it’s for gophers. Carbon monoxide poisoning only happens in confined spaces, which is where gophers hide. Here’s how you do it.

Go to an automotive parts store and buy some exhaust piping or hose.

Attach the piping or hose to the exhaust pipe of your car. Make sure the attachment is secure.

Look around your problem area and cover all gopher mounds with dirt. Make sure to pack it tight because you’ll be using gas. It’ll be much tighter if you use a shovel instead of your shoes or bare hands.

Insert the hose into the single open mound.

Start your car engine and let it run for 15-20 minutes to suffocate the rodent.

A gopher will naturally try to escape, so make sure a shovel is handy to catch it on the way out.

Crop Management

Crops with single tap roots suffer more damage than crops with several large roots (like alfalfa). Many farmers resort to “crop rotation” to effectively control gophers.

Crop rotation is a planned order of planting different crops in the same area. It’s interchanging the crops to keep the soil more fertile and naturally ward the garden of any pest due to the constant changing of vegetation varieties.

A common method of crop management is cutting several sections of root from a multi-rooted variety of crops so that new shoots will compensate for any crop loss caused by gophers. Another tip is the use of annual grains, known to produce crops with small roots that can’t support gophers all year round.

Many farmers minimize gopher immigration by using buffer strips. Buffers strips (also called conservation buffers) are natural borders that help protect crops from numerous environmental concerns. Planting 50-foot wide buffer strips (like grain or grass) around an alfalfa plantation is an effective way of outsmarting gophers because they don’t like grass. Common grasses don’t provide a substantial diet for gophers, just a marginal diet, causing them to wander off to other areas.

A herbicide treatment called 2,4-D also ward off gophers by controlling the broad-leaf forbs. Forbs are flowering weeds (usually purple) that you can find on prairies and meadows. Forbs are actually a favorite of northern pocket gophers (like the Botta) because these plants have an underground storage structure that attracts the rodents. The herbicide kills the forbs and, in turn, repels the northern gophers.

Fields that are leveled might serve as refuge for the gophers. This is when flood irrigation works best. The wet-flooded soil prevents the dissemination of gases from inside and outside the burrow. The gas sticks to the pocket gopher’s fur, making the place too inhospitable for the gopher to stay.

Keep in mind that gophers are really unassuming creatures. They only stir up trouble when they help themselves to someone else’s property. The tips above are the best ways to get rid of them, not your shotgun, because gophers rarely go out in the open. Why should they? They just have to pull down your plant’s roots.