Trap before you plant

[wildWoman]

Just found even more arguments for my winter gardening inside the cabin - the bloody voles have eaten all of the dandelions!! How lucky we got the salad greens in the cabin, otherwise there'd be no fresh greens for a few more weeks.
We always set traps for mice and voles in the garden and greenhouse about 10 days before planting. The first year here we didn't and lost most of the greenhouse crop to the voles. Looks like it might be a banner year for the little critters again...if only the dogs were more talented at catching them.

[Sourdough]

W W, Do you have the "Redback Voles"....?

[Rick]

Hey, WW. Shrews!! I'm lucky enough to have breeding shrews and you won't find any voles around here. Shrews will eat them! Shrews only eat invertebrates like slugs and snails and earthworms as well as voles, salamanders and snakes so they leave your garden alone. Nasty, painful bite though.

[canid]

but they smell horrible. my cat used to eat [or rather, only begin to eat] them in southeast alaska. find several of them round the yard and porch every day or so.

[wildWoman]

It's meadow voles we have. I thought I saw a lemming last year too. There seem to be fewer mice somehow.
Rick, please send 50 shrews by air drop!!

[Rick]

I'll have to send by air. If I send them overland their pass through Idaho and there's no telling what could happen there. They might even fall in a bunker or two. Now, if I can just find my potato gun...

[Aurelius95]

Hey, WW. Shrews!! I'm lucky enough to have breeding shrews and you won't find any voles around here. Shrews will eat them! Shrews only eat invertebrates like slugs and snails and earthworms as well as voles, salamanders and snakes so they leave your garden alone. Nasty, painful bite though.

I understand that shrews are hard to domesticate. The history of that goes back about 400 years to the small Italian city-state of Padua. Not sure if you've read that before...:)

[Rick]

It's not all that hard. Once you tie the little apron or put their little suits on (depending on sex of course) they sort of get the message. If they are really stubborn you just hand them a little mop. That seems to give them an attitude adjustment.

[crashdive123]

Much has been written about taming shrew. In fact, Shakespear wrote about it in detail in the 1590's. Here's a more modern look.

http://www.thedvdway.com/spanish/classic/1960s/shrew/taming.jpg

[Aurelius95]

Indeed, Trax (edit: Crashdive)! Exactly what I was referring to. Did you ever see the "Moonlighting" episode from the 80's that portrayed the Taming of the Shrew? Anyway, quite off-topic.
*sigh*

[Rick]

Uh, Trax didn't post on this one. But that's okay. You can yell at him if you want. The rest of us will enjoy it.

[Chris]

damn voles ate all my corn seeds. I replanted by alternating poison bait for every other one. We'll see who is smarter.

[nell67]

Chris,I have never had anything eat my seeds before,I never would have thought of planting poison in my garden,tell us how that works out for you.

[Rick]

Somewhere underground a ninja vole class is underway.

"Okay men. We've learned the enemy has planted poison seeds in the garden. Here's the plan. After the plants come up we'll take the poison ones, the ones that didn't sprout, and insert them into the fruit. We'll see who is smarter."

[nell67]

I just gotta worry about where that poison is gonna end up when it rains? its not going to stay in that little spot in the ground,its going to disolve and leach into the food maybe?

[Rick]

I'm tellin' ya. The voles got a plan.

[nell67]

I dont think the voles have to be involved in it,I think the rain will take care of it .

[Rick]

Psssst. That's part of the plan.

[wildWoman]

damn voles ate all my corn seeds. I replanted by alternating poison bait for every other one. We'll see who is smarter.

We bait our traps with pieces of tomato, zucchini and squash plants for the voles, they totally go for it. Consider that if you poison the voles, you may also poison the animals that eat them, and you end up with yet more voles in the long term.

[wareagle69]

i have lots of deer and wabbits here that i have to protect my crops from, surprisingly enough little brown dawg is a fantastic mouse and vole hunter of course the side effect is a torn up garden but what a pleasure to watch her hunt, the cats(5) just sit there and watch in amazement when she hunts probably critiquing here technique

[Chris]

We bait our traps with pieces of tomato, zucchini and squash plants for the voles, they totally go for it. Consider that if you poison the voles, you may also poison the animals that eat them, and you end up with yet more voles in the long term.
Alas, there are no predators here, which is the problem. I live in town.

Anyways, the poison didn't work... very well anyways, a few sprouted, a few got eaten.

New plan: start all seeds in trays. I hate seed starting indoors because hardening off is annoying to me. If you start sees indoors in a window or under growlights they don't adapt well to the outdoors so you have to harden them off by bringing them outside during the day and inside at night for like 2 or 3 weeks, so annoying.

BUT.... you can plant outdoors in flats and then transplant. This, mostly, keeps the voles out of it, and who doesn't have flats from the greenhouse or garden center laying around? I've had voles, or chipmunks, or whatever, eat my corn, my sunflowers, all my various members of the squash family, so annoying. I have much better luck starting in those trays just sitting out in the sun because they can't tunnel up into them, only climb on top and dig down (which exposes them to possible predators so it is against their nature).

Once the seedling has leaves it is pretty safe from being eating by these rodents, so at that point I transplant.

[wildWoman]

I lost three of my zucchini plants in the greenhouse to the voles, despite setting a trap a week in advance and starting the plants inside the cabin. The voles here are specialized in gnawing through the stem of the plant at soil level and unfortunately go for bigger plants, too. Trapped the bugger after a few days and feel somewhat superior for growing a few zucchini plants inside the cabin in containers this year. I'm keeping a trap going but the problem with using squash plants as bait is that the bait dries up within a few hours and is then not taken by the voles anymore. I keep maiming one of my inside plants for this purpose in the hope the voles might ignore the other zucchinis in the greenhouse and make a beeline for the trap.

[Rick]

Take a plastic soda bottle or milk carton. Cut the top and bottom out of the container so you only have a tube and slide it down over your plant to a depth of about 4 inches. Leave about 4-5 inches (depending on what you are using) out of the soil as a barrier to the little cretins. You can also set mouse traps using either bird seed or grass seed. Pieces of apple will work well, too. Find an entrance to their tunnels and if you haven't caught something in two nights move the trap to another tunnel entrance. They don't always use the same entrance to discourage predators (like you) so keep moving the traps until you find the entrance they are using.

Same with runways. If you have a clear trail they are using, set the trap so the bait is on the trail. They won't use the same trail every day so you may have to move it as described above.

[owl_girl]

i have had no luck with traps yet. though theybare set in bad spots i guess. i think i will have to depend on a more active hunting style for food