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Voles
How to Get Rid of Voles Without Poison
How to Get Rid of Voles Without Poison
Voles drive gardeners and home owners crazy! You’ll know voles by the snakelike tunnels all over your lawn. Here’s advice on how to identify, prevent, and control your vole population.
What’s the Difference Between a Vole and a Mole?
First off, voles are not moles! People confuse the two animals because they both tunnel through your yard. You might not have seen either critter since they’re usually underground, but they look very different. Voles (Myodes) are small, stocky rodents similar to field mice. In fact, a vole might look like a mouse at first glance. In contrast, moles are NOT rodents. Moles are all nose and mouth. And they have big feet used in digging! See our Mole page.
Voles have small rounded ears that are often hidden by their fur, small eyes, and short tails. Their fur is generally thick and light brown to gray. Two common species of voles in North America are the prairie vole and the meadow vole. Meadow voles are more widely distributed, but prairie voles are more common in prairie areas. They are very similar, and methods for controlling them are mostly the same.
Vole Diet: Plants!
Voles, similar to other rodents, have a mainly vegetarian diet. Voles mainly eat stems and blades of lawn grass—so it’s usually vole tunnels that you’ll see near the surface of the yard. Moles have a mainly carnivorous diet. (Moles are beneficial in many ways. They help plow the soil and eat grubs and insects!)
It’s helpful to know this difference not only because it will help you identify the damage (see below) but also because a vole bait would use peanut butter whereas moles would be more interested in an insect or earthworm.
If it helps, remember that their frenzied activity does subside. Vole populations cycle, and about every 3 to 5 years there will be a population boom. Mild winters with good snowfall can help to increase vole populations.
Photo Credit: Washington State University. Many of the same methods that you use to get rid of mice can be used to get rid of voles; after all, voles are commonly referred to as “meadow mice” or “field mice.”
Identification
You’ll know voles by the shallow snake-like tunnels that you’ll see all over your lawn. The tunnels are about two inches wide and very near the surface so they can eat their favorite food, grass stems and blades. Voles are especially manic in the early springtime.
Moles, on the other hand, have deeper feeding tunnels that they use as a network. They do have secondary runways that appear on your lawn’s surface, however, they look more like raised ridges and have little volcano-shaped mounds. Voles leave no mounds behind.
You’ll also be able to identify voles by the type of damage. Remember: It’s the voles who are plant eaters.
- If you have partially eaten carrots, potatoes, or other root vegetables, you probably have a vole problem. According to one reader, “They dig under my carrots, pulling them down, and eating them. There’s just a row of holes where the carrots were. Kind of amusing, like a bugs bunny cartoon. They’re a real pest this year.”
- Voles also eat flower bulbs from below the ground as they’re near the surface.
- If you see chewed-up bark near the base of trees and shrubs, look closely. A vole’s front teeth will leave ¼ inch side-by-side grooves in the wood as it gnaws away on the bark. (They’re rodents, after all!)
- Voles also tunnel through any root system, causing damage to trees and shrubs. If you see young trees or shrubs leaning over, it may be due to voles.
Control and Prevention
Prevent Voles
Make your yard inhospitable to voles! Prevention is very important to keep vole numbers down.
- Voles like dense, heavy vegetative cover, weeds, and meadows because it provides them with protection from predators and provides nesting material. Cut back brush, mow, weed, and create a clean space.
- Remove woodpiles and hiding places for voles from near your garden, shrubs, and trees.
- Keep your lawn mowed and bushes trimmed up from the ground.
- Avoid putting dense mulch too close to trees and shrubs.
- Keep snow cleared from the base of trees and shrubs. Protect young trees by wrapping the lower trunk with a guard.
- Bird feeders are another attraction for voles and should either be removed or the ground kept very clean to keep vole numbers down.
- Fortunately, voles are a prime food source for many predators such as snakes, hawks, owls, foxes, and badgers!
How to Get Rid of Voles
If you’ve come to this page, we assume you’re looking for immediate ways to deal with these crazy voles! If it’s too late for preventative measures, consider these control measures:
- In small areas, trapping may be an effective way of reducing vole populations. Try Havahart live vole traps situated perpendicular to the widest vole runways or near the nesting sites at the base of trees and shrubs. Bait traps with peanut butter. Set baits midday to early evening when voles get more active. Reset the traps as often as necessary until you eliminate the population. Relocate voles if it’s legal where you live. The key to trapping is persistence. You may want to cover the traps so that pets and children do not accidentally find them.
- Repellents have mixed results and need to be reapplied after it rains. Garden stores sell fox or coyote (predator) urine which usually turns off voles. (You can also pee in your own yard!)
- Bulb control? You can discourage voles from nibbling on bulbs by adding gravel to the planting hole (surrounding the bulbs). When you plant bulbs, drench or powder them with a fungicide to keep voles at bay. Plus, check our list of rodent-proof bulbs.
- Vole damage to tree bark is best prevented by encircling the tree with a light-colored tree guard (mesh). The guard should be tall enough to reach above the snow line in the winter and the base should be buried in the soil or have a soil ridge around the base. Make sure that the guard is loose enough so that it does not constrict the tree.
- Voles in the veggie garden? These little critters aren’t very good climbers. Protect plants by fencing the area with a half-inch of mesh (hardware cloth), at least 12 inches above the ground and buried 6 to 10 inches deep.
- Some readers have suggested a variety of irritants sprinkled into vole tunnels (from natural to chemical): cayenne powder, garlic, onion, castor oil, a little nitrogen fertilizer, moth balls, and ammonia. In many cases, these ingredients can be mixed with water or soapy water and put in a spray bottle. However, you need to reapply ever time it rains.
- One of the best control methods is an outdoor cat or a dog who’s a ratter!
- If you are desperate and about to sell your home, large vole populations have been effectively reduced with baits. However, most pesticides recommended for voles are restricted and can only be used by Certified Pesticide Applicators. Contact your local Extension educators for more information.
- While the damage may look visible in early spring, it is rarely permanent. Mole activity is heaviest in the springtime in most regions and does subside! Simply rake up the dead grass and reseed the area. As the surrounding grass grows it will cover up the trails.
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Reader Comments
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Vole Protection
I have over 20 years in Horticulture and own a landscape design,build, and maintenance company. I graduated from NCSU and have spent years dealing with Voles. I couldn't find a reliable product to protect new plants or bulbs from Voles. All repellents and noise makers were inconsistent and expensive. I developed, trialed, and released the wire mesh baskets we currently offer after the passed all my test and clients satisfaction. Vole King should be used on all new plantings to provide instant and future protection!!!
vole article
"While the damage may look visible in early spring, it is rarely permanent. Mole activity is heaviest in the springtime in most regions and does subside" adding to the confusion as the last point in your VOLE article. I have extensive experience with pocket gophers and voles. after ridding the grounds around my cabin of pocket gophers by summer the voles move in to the convenient gopher holes... every year. I use Cinch traps for the gophers because nothing else works that is viable or effective... get the smallest ones if you are considering it. When the Voles move in I use Havaheart mouse traps which are only hit and miss. but steel snap kill bar rat traps placed in active sections do the real work. The gophers are the worst from spring to late fall but mostly in the summer unlike your reporting.
Voles
Here in the High Desert of Central Oregon we have both voles and sage rats. Your photo looks like what we call sage rats. Are they one and the same? I have gotten rid of quite a view with the vole poison, but the best way is to shoot them with a BB or pellet gun. Some of the guys here actually go out on a "hunting trip" for sage rats. LOL
voles
I believe sage rats are a type of ground squirrel. Voles look like meadow mice (though they are not rodents). Also, moles are usually more prevalent in early spring when they eat grass stems and start breeding. You’ll see mamas with their babies right around Mother’s Day.
what worked for me
When our NC yard was full of tunnels I ran across a suggestion that work for me. Whirligig flowers, bought at the dollar store. The little colorful flowers on a stick that spin with the wind. The article said that the voles would not like the vibrations underground. I "planted" those around the garden, and affected areas of the yard and it worked!
Voles
Will predator urine cause established vole population to move away from yard to the woods, or does it just repel future vole infestation?
Urine
I have gophers voles and moles...i fill up a water bottle of urine once a month...yes..mine...and edge my flower beds..it is the only place free of damage!
Vole
Would the ultrasonic devices work for voles?
ultrasonic repellers
Some ultrasonic pest repeller devices are meant to repel voles along with mice and certain other rodents. Check the instructions of the manufacturer, and if you are using it outside, make sure that you get one for outdoor use. In general, these devices have mixed reviews as to their efficacy, but it might be worth a try!
The sonic vole deterrent
I purchased a dozen of these solar powered sonic rodent deterrent devices that you shove in the ground for $200 this summer to fight off a vole infestation and I’m sorry to say they were totally useless against the burrowing voles here.
In fact after 2 days I found 2 new tunnels dug right next to one of the devices with their den being literally right beneath one of the sonic waste of money devices.
(And please dont catch and release this horrible disaster on someone elses property. One pregnant female vole can turn into a colony of over 1,000 voles in a single year. They must be killed)
However, if you have a pond with fish, do not place any of these sonic devices within 75 feet of the pond. As soon as i set the sonic devices out my fish started going crazy trying to crowd into the farthest corner of the pond away from the devices. I moved the devices and the fish instantly relaxed.
Utrasonic doesn't work.
I watch this great youtuber. Does nothing but mouse traps and rat traps.
He's tested utrasonic multiple times. They don't work at all.
However peppermint oil was very effective.
Utrasonic doesn't work.
I watch this great youtuber. Does nothing but mouse traps and rat traps.
He's tested utrasonic multiple times. They don't work at all.
However peppermint oil was very effective.
Utrasonic doesn't work.
I watch this great youtuber. Does nothing but mouse traps and rat traps.
He's tested utrasonic multiple times. They don't work at all.
However peppermint oil was very effective.
gophers
no article on them??
I think I have both!
I have the mounds of earth for the moles. I can see the runs in my beds where the voles tunnel while they chew the roots off my plant's. They destroy the plants and do not eat the vegetables. They've destroyed tomatos, eggplants, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussel sprouts, and more, much more. We've tried repellents, poison beans and worms none worked!
Put hardware screen in the bottom of the beds, that worked! Now we have to do the whole garden.
I have two cats out there too. We tried milky spore to get rid of the grubs. Not sure if it's working yet. It takes a while for that to happen.
Hey I'll try peanut butter and the bucket ideas what do I have to loose.
I kid you not, these critters shoved a poison worm back up through the hole I put it in. I think they were trying to tell me something.
moles--> voles
In the last paragraph, you say "moles", I think it should be "voles"?
Shadow the Vole Hunter
I have very few in my yard anymore since I have a cat (Shadow) that will kill every one she gets her paws on. :)
Voles
Whether it's my shady northern exposure or my backyard wildlife habitat with no tilling and lots of groundcovers, I have always had voles everywhere. And I was going to add to your list until I saw the last point--a cat who can patrol the garden and yard. I don't let my cats roam, but one or two go outdoors with me for a time nearly every day when I hang out the laundry and work outside. Once they discovered the garden had voles they decided voles existed as an important supplement to their diet, and the problem was, for the most part, solved. When we haven't been able to go outdoors for a period of time, my work schedule usually, the difference is noticeable. But then they manage to find a way into the basement, so at least the cats still have some environmental enrichment.
Vole elimination
I have been thinking the past few years that grubs are what attracts voles so if I use grub repellent voles won't have anything to come to.
Your vole control, wrong animal
Vole are vegitarians. Not carnivor. Mole are carnivors.
Voles are both vegitarian and carnivor
You are 99% correct in that plant material is the primary food of voles but they actually eat their own dead and they will eat other dead animals they find in their area. At daylight one morning i noticed movement at the base of a tree near my kitchen window. I quietly eased outside to see 3 voles scurrying away from a mostly eaten vole. There was not much left.
I later read that it is common for them to eat their dead which would explain why it’s rare to find a dead vole because most die in the underground dens where they become dinner for the family and the few that die while above ground are quickly eaten by those not-so-cute little demons.
In my yard they also completely devoured a small stuffed aligator head, bones and all over the course of a couple of months. I checked it daily watched the skin disappear fist, then i placed a drop light 8 feet above it so i could watch with binoculars from the house. Every night several voles spent hours chewing away at the heads.
The interesting thing is after the glass eyes of the stuffed gator head fell to the ground, other voles, what looked to be juvenile voles were pushing the red marble sized glass eyes around a large area just playing with fhem. Everyday after that and today i still look around to see where the “vole soccer balls” ended up after being played with again all night. Sometimes they’re 60 or 70 feet from where they were the night before. I wish voles weren’t so horribly distructive and didn’t carry so many parasites into my yard like ticks, fleas and lice. We’d become pals if not for all that.
Getting Rid Of Voles Safe And Cheap.
All you need is a plastic 5 gal bucket, 3 mouse traps and black oil sunflower seeds per set. Load and set the mouse traps close around the hole so the bucket will fit over all of them without tripping them then lift the bucket and sprinkle some sunflower seeds on and around the traps. Carefully set the bucket over the traps in the afternoon and you'll have them over night. Trap the same hole until you don't catch any more for a day or 2. To tell if they are Voles or Mole trails is easy, Voles will have a breathing hole in the run about every 4 to 6 feet, Moles won't. To get rid of the Moles use a spike trap on the fresh trails and keep moving them to the fresh trails. Patients and persistence will get rid of them without any poisons that could harm your pets.
Getting rid of voles.
This sounds like a great idea. I am going to give it a try.
voles
if you are (I assume) turning the bucket upside down, how do the voles get in? do you carve a 'door' opening or just prop up the bucket on one side?
Voles
Alice Duncan, The voles come up from their hole in the ground and the bucket makes a "dome" over the hole and set traps. So no doors in the bucket access is via the hole in the ground.
voles
I discovered a vole like animal in my house. However, it did not have any hair. The shape of the body and the nose were identical to pictures of voles I have seen. The body was black and shinny like one would see on a beetle.
What animal did I capture?
ANSWER "WHAT ANIMAL DID I CAPTURE?"
that is a mole.