I try to look at the problem as an outsider. As a Ukrainian immigrant with kind of different background of let me say a different philosophy toward rodents extermination procedure I’m here to listen local folks.
Here in America I can see a very expensive and extensive approach to getting rid of any rodents.
My garden is surrounded by a forest and mostly suffering from a porcupines damage. Number two evil are woodchucks : both rodents/animals can infiltrate in through my plastic deer stopping fence on a bottom. There is nothing effective on a market for those creatures.
Now we are talking about voles and mice. NYC is fighting with rats spending million of taxpayers money on that sanitation procedure. Any success ? I doubt it.
My simple question is about more radical approach to exterminate unwanted rodents. Why nothing with genetically transmitted poisonous effect is available ?
Why should we buy and feed those unwanted rodents till our wallet became thin ? Over the time all bait blocks became eaten but instead of our local voles and mice , another are coming from a forest or a neighborhood. It seems like a never ending story. I cannot feed them permanently.
I don’t feel comfortable to spend my salary for feeding those creatures. Our modern chemical industry supposes to offer us - humans/farmers/gardeners with more effective “one bite” poison or something with a sterilization effect. Our scientists could choose what gender to target : male or female.
Honestly, it seems so stupid for me to fight with wild rodents by feeding them with bait blocks. Those blocks are not distributed for free and they are extremely law effective. Have no idea how many rodents I have now on my property and how many resides around.
Your comments would be nice to read here.
Porkies, groundhogs, bunnies, raccoons, all get “fed” a .22 to the noggin.
Little critters like voles get bait blocks. I think I’ve spent less than $50 over the last 2+ years on blocks. Doesn’t seem too expensive to me, at least when I consider how much I spend on trees/rootstocks/scions, mower fuel, lime, gypsum, and orchard chemicals.
There is a current thread on this subject that you could possibly join in on.
There is no consensus…but it is an open discussion nonetheless.
I use snap traps and a tube trap for larger vermin…
You are lucky to find such cheap baiting blocks that really work. Or, maybe, you have a very small population of rodents. I bought a bucket of rat baiting blocks for $98.00 + shipping , 3 GA backet , If I would feed my little residents regularly, I would be out in 3 months. They consume 10-12 blocks weekly.
Have you identified the animals you are attempting to control?
Just curious, do you have a perimeter around your garden plot of very low-cut grass? Supposedly voles are programed to avoid travel through exposed areas so they don’t get eaten. It works for me but I’m sure I have way less voles than you do.
You could also put up some owl/kestrel houses. I know that isn’t a short-term answer but using nature to fight nature always helps.
If you already have deer fence all you need to make a tranche and add some short netting, preferably metal to avoid chewing, so its bottom end goes into the tranche and upper end connected to existing deer net with zip-ties. Then just fill in the tranche with soil. It will cost some money, but if it is metal, it should be permanent.
Hmmm, BM seems to be lumping Norway Rats with all other rodents which does a disservice to one of mankind’s mortal enemies. Since humans became agricultural millions and millions have suffered at the expense of losing food supplies to these resourceful foes.
Many of the miracles of modern science are wonders we should be grateful for, but we can’t blame our engineers and chemists for failing to solve every problem in an efficient way- annihilating resourceful, quick breeding creatures isn’t easy and in the case of Norway Rats, distributing baits in a huge city by people supplied with a livable wage is going to be expensive even if the bait is cheap. Sanitation also involves limiting their access to garbage and they recently stopped using plastic garbage pails in favor of heavy metal small garbage stations, which add up to a lot of money.
Anyway, I’m glad we don’t have porcupines downstate, but the bears seem to be moving into the area, and they are far worse.
On the site I posted about, the owner seems to have succeeded keeping his mother bear and cubs from his orchard with a flimsy electric fence. The bear was coming every day taking every nearly ripe fruit, but hasn’t returned since the fence was installed. The fence is mounted on 3’ high fiberglass poles (the length coming out of the ground) I could snap easily, with 4 strands of constantly charged wire.
The bear isn’t starving without the fruit, as the neighborhood is full of bird feeders, beehives and garbage cans as well as a winery with lots of grapes and plenty of fruit trees on other properties. .
It’s time to keep owls to control the rodents.
Yes, I did. They are two kinds : porcupines and woodchucks. My garden is 100 yards by 90 yards surrounded by plastic deer resistant net ( 6’ high) , so all rodents are coming beneath. Idealistically, I would need to install a metal mesh fence over the plastic one and cement the bottom. Same time my garden is on a hill and the surfaces not straight as on TV shows. Its gonna cost me a fortune to create a concrete barrier inserting a mesh net bottom on it. That is why I’m looking for somethin radical and .22 caliber is not a solution because porky are browsing at night and after a hard work I do prefer to get a rest at night.
I wanted to post my property but my neighbor told me porcupines don’t read English, as well woodchucks don’t understand Russian or Ukrainian.
Of course a deadly baiting would be a solution, the problem is where to get such a bait.
I have never heard of using poison blocks for porcupines or woodchucks.
Personally, I would find another solution. Good luck
most farmers keep dogs but with porkys that’s no good. the vet visits alone would eat up any savings.
I have no difficulty trapping woodchucks in live traps with cabbage or apple bait. It’s easiest if you can find their burrow but sometimes they get in my veg garden and I can’t find their home. Then I cover everything they like with floating row fabric and they go right into the trap placed between the covered rows.
I use to move them elsewhere, but decided that the more responsible thing to do is just to kill them. Experts suggest that if you move them they are likely to be driven away from anyplace else by established woodchucks and end up starving to death.
I trap about 3 per year on my property on average. For coons the average is more like 15 with wild fluctuations. There have been fewer of them the last two years.
I trap about 20 groundhogs a year by putting a conibear trap over, or on top of, their hole. I caught 4 in 6 hours on Monday. The issue might be if you have pets in the area. They have dug holes under my farm house and in my barn. If I fill their hole, they dig a new one. They’re never ending. I bet I’ve trapped 120 in the past 5 or 6 years.
That is the major purpose for the Forum - to ask for and to get solutions. What could be your solution? Traps ? .22 caliber ? $1m investment into concrete fence?
Thank you for the comment. Obviously you live where your farmland is. In my case I live in 188 miles away and can visit my farmland once a week. I set traps #110 and they missed those creatures for an unknown reason. When I set a paw holding trap, I often find a paw inside but no animal around.
I don’t want to vandalize wildlife, I want to eradicate them on my property. That is actually why I expressed my wonder points about American chemistry specialist cannot provide a solution for such common farmers problem.
I spoke to several Conservationists and they brought an “excuse” points for that scientists silence based on protection another animals and birds that gonna consume poisoned animals.
I do understand them completely. That is why I try to understand why our scientists cannot offer us with sex neutralization baits. Indeed, let them live their life span but bring no litters anymore.
Department of Conservation ( here in New York) has no comment on that my inquiry.
Obviously you live where your farmland is. In my case I live in 188 miles away and can visit my farmland once a week. I set traps #110 and they missed those creatures for an unknown reason. When I set a paw holding trap, I often find a paw inside but no animal around.
I don’t want to vandalize wildlife, I want to eradicate them on my property. That is actually why I expressed my wonder points about American chemistry specialist cannot provide a solution for such common farmers problem.
I spoke to several Conservationists and they brought an “excuse” points for that scientists silence based on protection another animals and birds that gonna consume poisoned animals.
I do understand them completely. That is why I try to understand why our scientists cannot offer us with sex neutralization baits. Indeed, let them live their life span but bring no litters anymore.
Department of Conservation ( here in New York) has no comment on that my inquiry.
For one, I would forego a few hours of sleep to get the porcupine(s). They are more crepuscular than nocturnal so you don’t have to stay up all night. Run a trailcam to figure out when they are showing up, then be there to greet them with a flash light and a .22.
Groundhogs are easy to control IME, the key is to eliminate them in spring before they make more babies. Find the dens, wait for a shot, take it. Don’t have the time? Set leg hold traps near the den. Don’t want to shoot them in a leg hold? Set conibears. Live traps baited with apples usually work for the younger groundhogs. Seems the older ones can get trap shy.
The interwebs are full of solutions for trouble animal control. Almost every solution will require time, dedication, and some money.
Edited to add…wanting to eradicate wildlife from your property is not realistic or intelligent. The only critters I remove are problematic ones. Everything else is welcome. Porkies are cool critters, as long as they stay out of my fruit trees. They are welcome on 92 of my 95 acres.
Running leg hold traps and not checking them daily is not only unethical, it is illegal in many states.
I believe your methods are unethically cruel. If you aren’t there, the only humane manner of pest control that I know is electric fencing. Please do that.