The Key To Effective Vole Control In Salt Lake City

It can be a mystery when a pest starts to destroy your lawn, landscaping, garden vegetables, fruit plants, or some other form of vegetation on your property. When inspecting areas where damage is occurring and signs of activity can be found, there are subtle clues to look for to tell whether or not you're dealing with an insect or an animal, and whether or not you're dealing specifically with a vole. The first step in effective vole control is determining that you do, in fact, have a vole.

What Is A Vole?

It is a ground-dwelling rodent that eats grass, fruit, vegetables, and other vegetation. If you see one, you may think you have a mouse problem. There are many visual similarities. But voles and house mice don't behave the same. A house mouse will get into your home and stay permanently. Voles don't get into structures. They cannot find an appropriate habitat inside your Salt Lake City home. They're going to live under your lawn grass, landscape plants, and other ground covers.

Signs Of Vole Activity

Looking for vole evidence is a lot like being a detective. You need to know where to look. You need to be observant. And you need to be able to piece the evidence together.

Where To Look

We've talked about where to look. If you have plants or grass on your property, this is where you'll find evidence. Voles have a preference for certain grasses, such as no mow fescue, and certain plants such as New Zealand flax. Finding damage to these food preferences doesn't mean you definitely have a vole, but you'll be able to zero in on your pest being a gopher, rat, or vole.

What To Look For

• Runways chewed in turfgrass. A runway can be a short trail from one plant to another or appear all through a lawn like veins.
• Paths in the dirt. If voles are moving from one area of plant cover to another and they have to pass over dirt or mulch, there may be a path created. This path could also be established by rats, mice, or gophers.
• Holes that don't have any mound dirt. When gophers or moles invade a property, you'll see mounds of dirt around the holes. Gophers leave volcano-like mounds, and moles leave mounds that are often shaped like a fan.
• Girdling around the base of trees.
• Grasses that look tan and dead.
• Plants that look wilted or that have a yellowish coloration.
• Plants that can easily be pulled from the soil with no resistance.

Piecing The Evidence Together

If you find runways or pathways, entrance holes that do not have mounds, damaged trees, dying grasses, and unique ornamental plant damage, you can be sure you have a vole infestation on your Salt Lake City property. At this stage, we wish we could say that there is an easy way to get rid of them, but there really isn't. If voles have found a habitat on your property, they're likely to stay, and they're likely to reproduce quickly. You can expect them to have five to ten offspring every month and a half. It won't be long till you're having significant trouble with these pests. This can add up to a lot of money as they do their damage. Lawns, landscaping, gardens, fruit trees, and other plants are costly to replace.