Funny story about warfarin, Just after my brain injury from being run over by one of the tractors, the neurologist started thinning down my blood with warfarin. Had to get someone to take me to a little poodunk hospital I wouldn’t take my dog to. But it was all that was available at the time.
Well the big city hospital was monitoring the test results, blood takes 3 times a week. I get this phone call from a technician/nurse obviously quite stressed. She almost shouts “where are you, are you ok?”
Well ya’ll know I’m not the sharpest tool, but I didn’t understand. Turns out the transfusions had thinned me way too much and I was down to a critical level, down to the low numbers, (might have been libation related I’ll give that). So she says, “don’t fall down, don’t cut yourself shaving, don’t do anything to get hurt!”
Well, that was about a dozen years ago and it is 4 o’clock, how bout that libation?
Looks like Warfarin and Zinc phosphide based poisons have the lowest risk of secondary poisoning
I haven’t used it, but there’s another extremely low toxicity option that might be worth trying: VoleX®
It’s based on corn gluten, and the theory is that it expands in their stomachs and kills them. It sounded unlikely, but I’ve used their very similar RatX product with apparent success.
For voles I’ve mostly been using large metal snap traps, which work fine, but are probably overkill and only get a small percentage of the population.
A few weeks back I was walking my dog amongst my trees and a vole made the mistake of making a dash. He was on it quick. He mortally wounded it, but didn’t seem inclined to make the kill. I had to take care of business, but afterwards I kicked it around and let him play with it while praising him. Hoping he learns their scent and starts to hunt them.
Dig a hole for a 5 gallon bucket along the vole route. Put a couple inches of water in the bottom. bait a water bottle on a stick with peanut butter in the middle of the bucket. Allow easy access to the bottle. We use this above ground for mice at work with a plank leading up the bucket. I’ve never tried for voles but it could be worth the effort.
Edit - if outside in an area that someone could step INTO the bucket, you’d probably want to cover it with something, maybe a wooden box similar to what @MacApples shared below.
I’ve had problems with voles quickly learning baited mouse traps are to be avoided after catching a couple. In fact, they will cover them with dirt or use them as their latrine. A trick that works super well for me the past couple years that I learned from one of Eliot Coleman’s books is to build wooden boxes about 10 x 18 inches with a vole sized hole in each end and a removable cover. Set an unbaited mousetrap with the trigger positioned just inside the holes. small rodents can never resist crawling across the trigger to explore this protected shelter. I have several of these set around the garden and greenhouse especially where I see their runs. Very effective time after time and catches mice also. I caught several dozen last fall and no worries about ensuring bait is fresh or poisoning non-target wildlife. Obviously this will be very labor intensive for large-scale orchards, but works well for the small-scale.
I will give this a try. Seems wise to have a rotation of control methods. I used anticoagulant blocks in bait stations last fall. Will switch to mechanical traps this spring. I also heard that castor oil works as a repellent. I infused some with half a dozen cloves of garlic, added a few tablespoons to a gallon of warm water with some dish soap mixed in as an emulsifier, then sprayed around the base of my trees. I plan to do infusions with hot peppers and wormwood (super bitter) at some point.
My new feral cat brought us vole # 4 this week. I took a close up of its teeth so people can see how they are like miniature beaver teeth. The bottom two slide under the top teeth like shears. They look razor sharp.
There’s a plastic trap that looks like a long rectangle. Once inside you have to leave it there for 24 hours and they expire. I can’t remember who made it but it caught mice and chipmunks that were eating our fruit. I’ll try searching and report if I can find it.
Thats a really nice cat!! Any chance you would like to send him or her to NY for a bit, my cats dont seem to know what they are doing and could use a little guidance.
I would have paid you to take it when it first showed up, but now I don’t mind keeping it around. Weird thing is it won’t bring any other creatures to the door. Just voles.
the best way to keep a feral cat catching for you is to barely feed it. if it gets fed regularly it has no incentive to hunt for its food. make sure you deworm him occasionally as vermin usually carry a large parasitic load.
Our cat is an equal opportunity killer. If it moves and she’s capable, she’ll kill it. Everything from grasshoppers in the summer to full sized cottontails in the winter/spring.
First thing I did when the cat wouldn’t leave was to take it to the vet. Wormed, flea meds, and made sure it was spayed. I believe it was starving and trying to stay alive in my barn. It can hunt to survive, but not when we had 10” of snow, cold temps, and I assume parasites eating up reserve energy. I don’t support having feral cats or even outdoor cats because of the damage they do, but I’m also not going to kill this cat. I’m glad it takes care of voles and such, but those really should be left to the native hawks, owls, etc.
I won’t state publicly what I do with feral tomcats.
Our cat showed up here a few years ago. She is either fixed or sterile as she’s never had kittens, and there’s plenty of tomcats roaming. She was obviously dumped by somebody because she was tame from the get go. She buddied right up to our golden retriever immediately. The dog had never put up with cats before, but they had always run from her. This cat didn’t run, so she figured she’d let it hang around I guess. The cat has navigated truly feral house cats, coyotes and bobcats since she’s been around. She must be a survivor.
My neighbor’s cat spends most of its time on my property. Plus someone is feeding feral cats. I see them with my wildlife camera at night. A pair of hawks moved here 3 years ago. I lost several young apple trees last year to voles. Unfortunately I need more than wildlife to stop them.
