That’s the kind we have here.
This is about the only place where I can say Vole and the other party doesn’t say, “Ya, I have Moles digging in my yard, too.” Most people have no reason to know voles exist.
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Unless they have cats
It’s been a crazy, cold, wet spring and I just got back from a couple of weeks in Thailand.
My vegetable garden. AKA, vole paradise:
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I feel your pain @murky . Been on war with voles for some time now.
Lost a lot of mulberry trees last year. Was heavy on poison on bait stations this year, havent lost a tree yet… but they are there as I can see their holes
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I planted peanut plants this year in my raised beds. Today I discovered that all the tops are munched down to the dirt. I am truly considering a garden cat.
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plant a bunch of catnip around your orchard. they will come from all over to roll in it. my aunt in Canada does this and i bet she has 6 local cats there all the time. hell on the birds she feeds though.
Voles ate 4 cucumber seedlings on day after planting. The new vole hole is a few inches from them. Will set a trap.
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So following up on my “Vole Control Bait Station” purchase. It definitely is working, but its also something that can be DIYed with a few pieces of PVC.
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Do you think the corpses remain underground?
This happened to me last year, I couldn’t get a single bean or cuke plant to mature before they chewed them to the ground. This year I tried a trick out of the orcharding handbook and made small wire cages to put around the seedlings…worked like a charm!
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As far as I can tell, yes. I haven’t seen a single body but there’s no vole damage or new holes.
Conversely, last year I used VoleX which is made with cornmeal and there were vole bodies all over the place near where I deployed that poison.
In addition I believe the type of poison used in Kaput has a lower risk of secondary poisoning. It can’t hurt to try VoleX and see if it works for you with the type of bait station setup I show in my video.
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This might be what you are saying, but to clarify:
VoleX is based on corn gluten, and contains no other poison. It physically obstructs the rodents’ digestive track, and they dehydrate and die. There is no risk of poisoning birds or animals who eat the carcass.
Kaput uses Warfarin, which is an anticoagulant. Compared to other poisons (especially some more modern anticoagulants), it has a relatively low risk of killing animals who eat the carcass. But if animals eat enough of the poisoned voles, they will die. This review article mentions several studies that showed deaths occurring for birds (barn owls) and animals (mink, weasels, dog) who ate animals poisoned with Warfarin.
Summarizing, and without making any claims about effectiveness on voles, VoleX is probably the safest bait option for other animals. The aboveground vole bodies may be unsightly, but aren’t poisonous. Kaput is better than many alternatives, and probably safe for scavengers if the bodies remain underground, but the poisoned carcasses can still kill those who eat them.
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i use tomcat bait chunks from TSC but i put them in 2in x 12’ pieces of pvc pipe with one end duct taped closed. i place the chunk in there and it sticks to the tape. then lay them around the perimeter of the property in late fall, just before the 1st snowfall is forecasted. been doing this for 6 years and have yet to see any carcasses once the snow melts. must go in their burrows to die. not sure what chemical is used in tomcat, but it works well.
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Tomcat uses Diphacinone, which is considered a first generation anticoagulant. The document I cited earlier considers it to have a “moderate” secondary risk to mammals, and a “high” secondary risk to birds (compared to “low” and “moderate” for Warfarin). Let’s hope that you are right that the reason you don’t see any carcasses is that they are decomposing underground, and not because they are all being scavenged!
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Thanks, not sure if I’d known about VoleX. I like the idea of them not being harmful to predators or scavengers, and also consider it a bonus to see the corpses so I know it did something.
I’ve caught 3 mice in my garage with snap traps this summer. I drop the corpses at the end of my driveway, at the transition to a woodsy area. They’ve taken 24-72 hours to disappear.