[Anika.]

No metaphore here. Real voles, real problem, they have taken over my garden. They have damaged and killed tons of my plants.

I like them, they are pretty cute, however the damage is pretty great. I don't want to kill them, just want them to relocate.

The other problem is my garden is along side my house. It's fairly large and wide with a pond and lots of ground cover as well. Which I realize now is a happy haven for the voles. And I am not talking a few here, there is a lot of them. Will they attempt coming in the house? Like mice do? They are always runnning along the patio doors.

It's nearly winter here but I read that they will use the snow as a cover as well. Not sure what to do about these guys...

Anyone have experience with voles?

[Contrast]

cute little buggers they are,
what I would recommenced is putting skewers or a mini garden fence around the garden.. if i were you i'd put skewers up pointing at a 40 degree angle so they don't squeeze through but i am assuming that is tedious.

i doubt they would attempt to come into your house, they don't prefer that environment..

if you got hawks or eagles around your area they can do some help by wiping out the rodents.. i wouldn't know much about habitat modification though.

Oh yeah, I have experience with them.

I hate to kill them, so I didn't do anything for a few years. They multiplied like bunnies - my yard was a vole empire! They were on all four sides of the house, and it got so bad I was seriously worried about the foundation of the house (it's on a slope).

So I finally gave in and got some poison - rat poison pellets work as well as the stuff just for voles. Take a narrow trowel, or even a stick, and put it down into one of the tunnels (you can feel it because the dirt is really loose.) Move the stick slightly, dump a few pills in, and they'll fall down into the hole when you remove the stick. I cover up the top of the hole a bit so the good guys - like squirrels or neighborhood cats - won't go after it. You have to keep doing it until they're gone, but it does work eventually. I never found any dead ones, so I don't know if they died or just went somewhere else. But at least they're gone!

But I found that crossing your fingers & hoping they'll head on over to the neighbor's yard doesn't work.

[gma45]

Are they like moles? I had bought these posts I stuck in the ground that put off a vibration and they left. They did move to the neighbors! But they didn't have a garden so it was alright, it sure saved mine and was harmless!