How to Keep Voles Away

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Voles are rodents that can spread quickly if you decide not to do anything about them. Ten moles around in your backyard can actually turn into 300 by the end of the year. These rodents will kill your trees, destroy your garden and ruin your lawn. Could using different methods repel them and keep them from being so destructive? Let’s see.

Kitty Litter
Would you believe that people have been using kitty litter for years when trying to deter voles? That’s right; someone got the idea that placing kitty litter in any noticeable vole holes and sealing them up could actually repel them against eating out your garden. What this “someone” failed to mention first is that if you’re not a professional animal expert, figuring out what areas to actually treat can be quite difficult. Voles are good at digging extensive tunnel systems which is why it can be hard to repel them. Your cat might not appreciate the idea of you wasting his kitty litter on voles.

Eliminate Grubs
Grubs are at the top of the list when determining the vole’s favorite food. They love grubs, but grubs can be a pest in your garden. Finding a solution that is environmental friendly to kill the grubs in your garden, while not containing any harmful chemicals that will affect you, your family and pets, can be quite a daunting task. Once you do find a product that fits your needs in this area, you’ll have to remember that it has to be maintained throughout your gardening to keep those grubs from showing up again and those voles as well. It may repel the voles for a while, but it’s definitely going to cost you.

Sonic Chasers
Voles do not have the best eyesight, but their sensitivity to noise and vibrations are very much in check. The sonic chaser is a device that is inserted into the ground and sends burst of signals to voles letting them know that danger is near through ground vibrations every 15 minutes. This device is battery operated which means that you will be spending a heap on batteries. This will keep voles from ruining your yard with their burrowing for a while, but not for long. If there are persistent voles living in your soil, they may just develop a tolerance for the vibrations. This is especially true if they’re able to eat well in your yard.

Flooding
Sticking a water hose inside of a vole’s burrow and turning the water on full blast is supposed to run them out of their tunnel systems, but you have to find the right tunnel to flood. Even if you flood all of the burrows that you find and watch them escape, they’ll just be back after you’re done. In fact, they’ll probably want to thank you for making the soil easier to tunnel through and watering the roots of the plants. Then again, some of them were probably able to stay in the soil by tunneling another escape route.

Mothballs
Do you have grandparents who seem to use mothballs for everything; everything including repelling voles? The idea is to stick mothballs in any burrows that you see and pack them back in with dirt. Mothballs have a terrible odor that is not only offensive to the rodents but to humans as well. Also, using them can be dangerous if you have pets that sometimes dig up the yard. Moth balls eventually dissolve and if you’re not careful about how you use them, you could be encouraging a health hazard for the animals, your family and others who may be drinking the same tap water.

Sharp Materials Used in Soil
In order to repel voles, you must first make them uncomfortable. If you can get sharp items into the soil such as Soil Perfector or Permatill, you could even make about 10% of the soil course gravel and mix it in a few inches deep. Not only is this supposed to make them uncomfortable but discourage them from putting together their perfect meal. However, doing this all over your yard or in your garden can be very time consuming and there’s no guarantee that it will work.

More in-detail how-to vole removal articles:

Information about vole trapping - analysis and methods for how to trap.
Information about how to kill a vole - with poison or other methods.
Information about how to catch a vole - remove one stuck in the house.
Information about vole repellent - analysis of types and effectiveness.

This site is intended to provide education and information about how to keep voles away from your house, yard, garden, plants, so that you can make an informed decision if you need to deal with a vole problem. This site provides many vole control articles and strategies, if you wish to attempt to solve the problem yourself. If you are unable to do so, which is likely with many cases of vole removal, please go to the home page and click the USA map, where I have wildlife removal experts listed in over 500 cites and towns, who can properly help you with keeping away voles.

Click here to read more about how to get rid of voles.