How To Remove Gophers From Your Yard

It seems that when you have a nicely manicured lawn and an abundant garden in your yard, that will be the time that gophers will arrive causing havoc. Gophers enjoy having an area with a readily available food supply. You will not want to share, however, so you will need to look for ways to have the gophers vacate your property so that you can enjoy it yourself. Here are some tips that you can use to remove gophers from your yard.

Use Deterrent Methods

If you want to try to get the gophers to leave without harming them, you can use some deterrent methods to try to annoy them into leaving on their own. Here are some of the ways that may work for you.

Loud Noise - Stick a small radio in a plastic bag and slip it into a gopher hole in your yard. Make sure it is on a radio channel with loud music with a lot of bass, and turn it up loudly. Shove it down as far as you can into the gopher hole so you won't hear it from up above.

Glass Bottles - Place blue or green glass bottles into gopher holes to try to frighten them. The color of the glass paired with the reflection that they would see of their own face will scare them.

Cotton Balls - Dip cotton balls into a mixture of equal parts of cayenne pepper, peppermint oil and garlic. Throw these down into the gopher holes. The smell of this concoction will make gophers pack up and leave.

Spray Plants - You can use the same mixture you place on cotton balls to spray on your vegetation up above. Another spray you could use is a half and half mixture of castor oil and water.

Trapping

If deterrents didn't do the job, you can try to trap the gophers yourself. You can buy small gopher traps from a hunting supply store. Bait them with some peanut butter and place them into the gopher holes. They have doors that will shut when the gopher goes inside. Do not touch them with your bare hands or the gophers will stay away, as they are aware of human scent. Periodically check them to see if you have caught any gophers and let them go free in a wooded area far from your home.

Poisoning

If the above methods do not work, you will need to resort to methods that will kill the gophers. There are poisons and snap traps available to try. If you would rather, call a professional exterminator, such as The Bug Man, to handle this for you. They will use materials that will not harm your vegetation and that are safer for pets and children to be able to be near.