How To Get Rid of Gophers
17–20 minutes to read | Updated for 2021
Sometimes called a pocket gopher because of its fur-lined cheek pouches, this small mammal is unique to the Western Hemisphere. Its homelands stretch from Central America to Alberta. This means that much of the U.S. serves as a gopher’s backyard, from coastal areas to high elevations. Unfortunately, its tunnels create a host of problems for North American farmers and homeowners. Along with being part of the food chain, gophers do play an important role in ecology. Their burrowing adds organic matter to soil and increases aeration. But if you think or know that they have caused damage on your property, your first step is to understand gophers and how to spot signs of their activity.
Physical Characteristics
- 5”-14” long
- Weigh anywhere from six ounces to nearly two pounds
- Fur ranges from black to light brown to white
- Small ears and eyes, so they rely more on their sense of touch
- Sometimes confused with squirrels, groundhogs, or moles
- Sturdy in the front of the body with a short neck and small, flattened head; long claws on the feet
Gophers Versus Groundhogs
Gophers:
- 5”-14” long
- Very light; weighs six ounces to nearly two pounds
- Black to light brown to white fur
Groundhogs:
- 16”-27” long
- Much heavier at 5-14 pounds
- Brownish-gray fur
What is a Gopher’s Lifecycle?
Each burrow is likely to house a single resident. Their habits change, however, during the breeding season of late winter through spring.
After gestation of between 18 and 50 days, females give birth to litters of two to five gophers. As the young reach about half of their eventual adult size during summer, they leave the burrow.
Gopher populations can vary greatly depending on the species. Some groups may swell only to six to eight gophers per acre, but others will soar to nearly 60 per acre. While this poses problems for homeowners and farmers, the population is controlled by natural predators like hawks, owls, badgers, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, and weasels.
Gophers not only grow fast, but they mature fast. They reach sexual capability in the spring following their birth. This makes sense given their brief lifespans. Geography plays a role in this animal’s life cycle. Gophers in northern states may only breed once per year while southern-based gophers may mate twice.
Can Gophers Transmit Viruses or Diseases to Humans?
Gophers can carry harmful diseases such as hantavirus, leptospirosis, and plague like other rodents. However, they are always underground and don’t usually come in contact with humans. A more common danger is in their ability to transmit fleas and ticks to outdoor pets.
Why Are Gophers on My Property?
Your soil is just their type. Moisture is crucial to gophers, as is a high concentration of clay. Sandy soil may deter them from excavating a home due to the potential for a cave-in and a lack of insulation from extreme temperatures. This means that they will likely seek out the preferred amount of clay and water when looking for a place to build a burrow. In an attempt to find moisture, gophers sometimes bite into irrigation pipes.
The climate is their sweet spot. Much of the United States is hospitable territory to gophers. If you live in the western two-thirds of America or certain states in the Southeast (Alabama, Florida, and Georgia), one or more of 10 different gopher species are part of the landscape.
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Signs of Damage
crops and gardens
equipment
utilities and pipes
Their near-constant chewing and chiseling on plants and underground equipment helps them keep those incisors at a manageable size. There are three ways gophers can make a negative impact:
Crops and Gardens
A single gopher can inflict major damage on the plants and fruits in a garden within a brief time. If you’re dealing with more than one gopher, an even larger area could be affected.
Potential Damage to Agricultural Equipment
The soil tilled up by gophers can damage or break parts of farming machinery as it passes over mounds of churned-up earth. In fact, horseshoe-shaped mounds of dirt are indicators of gopher activity nearby.
Underground Utilities and Pipes
Gophers may gnaw into utility cables, sprinkler systems, and plastic water lines to maintain their rapidly-growing teeth or to get a drink from your water supply. This is a more difficult kind of impact to assess because it is hidden from view.
Are There Any Smells or Sounds Unique to Gophers?
Where Should I Look for Signs of Gophers
If you believe gophers are marring your land or farm, consider buying a gopher probe (generally available at $30 or less). You’ll need to locate a mound with a plugged opening, then aim your probe about 8”-12” from the plug. The burrow will run 6”-12” underground, and the probe will encounter a noticeable two-inch drop. You may need to drive multiple times into the soil to find the main burrow, but your skill will improve with practice.
How Extensive are Gopher Burrows?
A burrow will stretch underground from roughly 200 – 2,000 square feet and 2 ½” – 3 ½” in diameter, with nesting and food chambers that may reach a depth of six feet. The main tunnel starts about 12”-18” away from an aboveground soil plug and will typically run 6”-12” (or slightly more) beneath the surface. This leads to tunnels branching off the main. The burrow system is complex and may even carry up to 200 yards of tunnels.
Seasonal Behavior
As noted before, the months from late winter through spring will drive population growth thanks to the breeding season. The young leave the burrow during summer once they have reached a large enough size to care for themselves.
No treatment method will be successful if it isn’t paired with a prevention method.
Otherwise, your gopher problem could retain in a matter of weeks or months, and you’ll be stuck dealing with even more damage and more money to spend. The following methods should also be used to prevent a gopher infestation altogether:
Step 1: Physical Barriers
Fencing
Even though gophers aren’t great climbers, they can and will dig underneath a standard privacy fence to access food. Wire mesh or hardware cloth perimeter fences can keep out gophers so long as they extend at least one foot under the ground. You can also curve the bottom part of the fence so that it is parallel with the surface of the ground. Once the gophers hit this part, they’ll likely turn around. This tactic will also keep out other burrowing animals, such as groundhogs, moles and voles.
Mulch or Gravel
Mulch around your plants to prevent gophers from pulling them underground or eating their tops. The mulch makes it harder for these animals to dig through, and they are also known to dislike the smell and taste. Gravel creates a similar barrier when poured around yards or even mixed into dirt within a perimeter.
Gopher Baskets
Baskets made out of netted material that fit into the ground allow bulbs or young plants to sit in the dirt without being vulnerable to gophers.
Step 2: Raised Plant Beds
Step 3: Introducing Natural Predators
Gophers mainly enjoy feeding on the roots of plants, which they access by burrowing under loose dirt.
Though they mainly move about underground through tunnels, they will also come onto the ground occasionally to feed on some tops of plants. All this can cause you an enormous pest problem once a gopher makes its way into your yard.
Treatment Methods
As gophers burrow, they kick dirt onto the surface at an angle. This gives their dirt mounds a crescent shape. They always plug their holes after using them to feed and before moving on to their next meal. These plugs are one of the distinct ways to tell that the pest ravaging your yard is a gopher rather than a mole or groundhog.
Once you feel that you’ve successfully inspected and identified a gopher problem whether on your own or through a professional, you can then begin some treatment and prevention methods.
Habitat Modification
Reduce Vegetation
It isn’t realistic or necessary to get rid of all your plants in order to keep away gophers. Instead, try reducing the amount of plants in your vegetable garden or making them harder to access. Trim back bushes and shrubbery, and pick up any ripe fruit or vegetables as they fall to the ground. Gophers will still feed on their favorite part of the plant – the roots – but they may be less likely to venture into your yard in the first place.
Pack Your Dirt
Gophers need loose soil in order to easily dig through a yard. Try to pack down your soil as much as possible and make it harder to move through. Lawn rollers are easy to use, allowing you to walk along your entire property while packing down the dirt.
Trapping
Gopher traps are available in stores and online, but you can also use other rodent traps that will work for a gopher’s size. To be sure, measure the burrow holes around your yard. Their diameter will give you a good indication of the size of your nuisance animal.
How to Use a Live Gopher Trap
- First, read the trap’s instructions to understand exactly how it works and how to properly set it up. Live traps will usually work with one-way doors or doors that snap closed once they are triggered.
- Set the trap according to the instructions. Take special care to avoid triggering it while your fingers are inside, especially if it operates by a spring mechanism.
- Bait the trap using fruits, vegetables, or plant roots.
- Place the trap at the entrance of a gopher tunnel, or dig out a portion of their tunnel to place it inside. Cover the trap with dirt so that it is disguised and does not leave the gopher tunnel open to the sunlight.
- Check the trap every day to see if it has caught a gopher.
If you have handled wildlife before, take the usual proper precautions before releasing the gopher:
- Dress in clothing that protects your skin.
- Wear gloves and goggles to protect your hands and eyes.
- Take the gopher to an isolated field or conservation area far from residential property.
- Set the trap on the ground and release its door in a swift motion, stepping back immediately to give the gopher room to run away.
Last update on 2023-06-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Pro Tip
Repellents
Liquid and Granule Repellents
Noise
Electronic Devices
Poison
How to Use Poisons
- Thoroughly read the instructions that come with any store-bought gopher or rodent poison bait.
- Prepare to handle the poison by wearing rubber or cloth gloves.
- Following the instructions, place a proper amount at the entrance to a gopher burrow.
- Most poisons are made of zinc phosphide or strychnine. Both will cause physiological and neurological reactions in gophers and other wildlife before they die, which is why they aren’t considered a humane option.
- Poisons are combined with a bait ingredient so that gophers are encouraged to eat them and die.
- Prevent your children or pets to come near the areas with poison while they’re in use.
- Monitor your yard to see if signs of gophers cease to occur. If not, reapply the poisons as necessary, according to the instructions.
- Since the gophers will die while they’re underground, you won’t have to deal with the carcass. However, once you are sure that the gophers are dead, you should follow through with sealing up their burrows.
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