In the Rodent Family What Is a Vole

How to Manage Pests

Pests in Gardens and Landscapes

Voles (Meadow Mice)

Revised 6/10

In this Guideline:

Vole (meadow mouse).

Meadow mouse runways connect numerous, shallow burrows.

Small mesh wire fence.

Small mesh wire contend.

A plastic cylinder protects the trunk of this young tree from vole damage.

A plastic cylinder protects the body of this young tree from vole damage.

Six species of voles from the genus Microtus occur in California. Collectively they are called either meadow mice or voles. Ii species are responsible for the bulk of impairment. The California vole, Thousand. californicus, is the near widespread vole in the state, found in the Owens and Central valleys and near the unabridged length of the littoral range. The montane vole, M. montanus, inhabits northeastern California and the eastern Sierra slope. Voles usually don't invade homes and shouldn't exist confused with the house mouse, Mus musculus.

Voles are intriguing modest mammals, considering some populations regularly become through cycles of low to high numbers with occasional sudden increases that can transport numbers soaring upward to several chiliad per acre.

IDENTIFICATION AND BIOLOGY

Voles are mouselike rodents somewhat similar in appearance to pocket gophers. They have a compact, heavy body, short legs, a short-furred tail, small eyes, and partially subconscious ears. Their long, coarse fur is blackish brown to grayish brown. When fully grown they can measure 5 to eight inches long, including the tail.

Although voles spend considerable fourth dimension aboveground and you occasionally can encounter them scurrying about, they spend most of their time below ground in their burrow system. The clearest signs of their presence are the well-traveled, aboveground runways that connect burrow openings. A protective layer of grass or other ground comprehend usually hides the runways. The maze of runways leads to multiple burrow openings that are each about i-1/2 to 2 inches in bore. You can locate the runways by pulling dorsum overhanging basis cover. Fresh clippings of green grass and greenish-colored droppings about 3/16 inch long in the runways and well-nigh the burrows are further testify of voles. With age, the debris lose the greenish coloring and turn brownish or gray.

Voles are agile mean solar day and night, yr-circular. You'll usually find them in areas with dense vegetation. Voles dig many short, shallow burrows and brand hole-and-corner nests of grass, stems, and leaves. In areas with wintertime snow, voles volition burrow in and through the snow to the surface.

Several adults and young can occupy a couch system. The size of the burrow system and foraging expanse varies with habitat quality, food supply, and population levels, merely in nigh cases it is no more than a few hundred square feet.

Vole numbers fluctuate from year to year, and nether favorable conditions, their populations tin increase rapidly. In some areas their numbers are cyclical, reaching peak numbers every 3 to 6 years earlier dropping back to low levels. Voles can breed whatsoever time of year, just the elevation convenance period is spring. Voles are extremely prolific, with females maturing in 35 to 40 days and having 5 to 10 litters per yr. Litter size ranges from 3 to 6 immature. Notwithstanding, voles seldom alive longer than 12 months.

Voles are by and large herbivorous, feeding on a diverseness of grasses, herbaceous plants, bulbs, and tubers. They eat bark and roots of trees, normally in fall or winter. Voles shop seeds and other found matter in hush-hush chambers.

Voles are poor climbers and commonly don't enter homes or other buildings. Instead, they inhabit wildlands or croplands next to buildings or gardens and landscaped sites with protective ground cover. Most problems around homes and gardens occur during outbreaks of vole populations.

DAMAGE

Voles cause damage by feeding on a wide range of garden plants including artichoke, beet, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celery, lettuce, spinach, sugariness potato, tomato, and turnip. They also can damage turf and other landscape plantings such as lilies and dichondra. Voles volition gnaw the bark of fruit trees including almond, apple, avocado, red, citrus, and olive. Vole impairment to tree trunks ordinarily occurs from a few inches aboveground to a few inches below footing. If the harm is below basis, you lot volition need to remove soil from the base of the tree to see it. Although voles are poor climbers, if they tin can climb onto low-hanging branches, they can cause damage higher up on trees also.

Gnaw marks about 1/8 inch wide and 3/eight inch long in irregular patches and various angles forth with other signs including droppings, runways, and burrows signal vole damage. If voles gnaw completely around the trunk or roots, information technology will disrupt the tree's flow of nutrients and h2o, a process known as girdling. Girdling damage on trunks and roots can kill copse. Signs of fractional body or root girdling can include a prolonged time before young trees conduct fruit, reduced fruit yield, abnormal yellowish leaf colour, and overall poor vigor. Where snow comprehend is present, impairment to copse tin extend a foot or more up the trunk. Damage that occurs below snowfall cover oft escapes notice until information technology is besides late.

LEGAL STATUS

The California Fish and Game Lawmaking classifies voles as nongame mammals, meaning if voles are injuring or threatening growing crops or other property, the possessor or tenant of the belongings has permission to control them at whatever time and in any legal manner.

MANAGEMENT

To prevent vole damage, you need to manage the population in your area earlier it reaches high numbers. You oftentimes can achieve this past removing or reducing the vegetative cover, making the surface area unsuitable to voles. Removing comprehend also makes detecting voles and other rodents easier. Once vole numbers begin to increase rapidly, the damage they do to ornamental and garden plants and to trees tin be quite severe.

Monitoring Guidelines

Be alarm for the presence of voles. Await for fresh trails in the grass, burrows, droppings, and testify of feeding in the garden and surrounding area. Pay particular attending to adjacent areas that take heavy vegetation, because such areas are probable sources of invasions.

Habitat Modification

One way to finer deter vole populations is to make the habitat less suitable to them. Weeds, heavy mulch, and dense vegetative cover encourage voles by providing food and protection from predators and ecology stresses. If you remove this protection, their numbers will decline.

You tin reduce the expanse from which voles tin can invade gardens or landscaped areas by regularly mowing, spraying with herbicides, grazing, or tilling grassy areas along ditch banks, right-of-ways, or field edges side by side to gardens. If feasible, weed-free strips tin serve every bit buffers effectually areas requiring protection. The wider the cleared strip, the less apt voles will be to cantankerous and become established in gardens. A minimum width of fifteen feet is recommended, but even that tin can be ineffective when vole numbers are high. A 4-foot-bore circle around the base of immature copse or vines that is gratis of vegetation or a buffer strip 4 feet or more forth a row of trees tin reduce problems, considering voles prefer not to feed in the open.

Exclusion

Wire fences at least 12 inches higher up the ground with a mesh size of one/iv inch or smaller will help to exclude voles from the entire garden. These fences either can stand alone or be attached to the bottom of an existing debate (Figure. 3). Bury the bottom edge of the fence 6 to 10 inches to prevent voles from tunneling beneath it. A weed-complimentary bulwark on the exterior of the debate will increase its effectiveness.

Y'all tin can protect immature trees, vines, and ornamentals from girdling by using cylinders made from hardware fabric, canvass metallic, or heavy plastic that surround the trunk. Back up or brace these devices, so they can't be pushed over or pressed against the trunk. Also brand sure they are wide enough to allow for tree growth and, in areas with snowfall, are tall plenty to extend above snow level. Bury the bottom of the protective device below the soil surface to prevent voles from digging beneath it. You can cutting out both ends of individual milk cartons, tin cans, or plastic soda bottles and fit them over small-scale plants. You'll want to frequently bank check protective devices to make sure meadow mice haven't gnawed through or dug beneath the cylinders and are hiding within the tree guard while they feed on the tree.

Trapping

When voles aren't numerous or when the population is full-bodied in a modest area, trapping can exist constructive. Use a sufficient number of traps to control the population. For a small garden a dozen traps is probably the minimum number required, simply for larger areas, you might need 50 or more than. You lot can utilize a simple, wooden mouse trap baited with a peanut butter-oatmeal mixture or apple slices, although frequently y'all won't need to utilize bait, considering voles will trigger the trap as they laissez passer over information technology.

Trap placement is crucial. Voles seldom stray from their runways, so set traps forth these routes. Look for burrows and runways in grass or mulch in or most the garden. Place the traps at correct angles to the runways with the trigger cease in the track. Examine traps daily, removing expressionless voles or resetting sprung traps as needed. Continue to trap in one location until yous end communicable voles then motion the trap to a new location fifteen to 20 feet away. Destroy sometime runways or burrows with a shovel or rototiller to deter new voles from immigrating to the site.

Coffin dead voles, or place them in plastic bags in the trash. Because voles tin can comport infectious pathogens or parasites, don't handle them without rubber gloves; y'all can use a plastic bag slipped over your hand and arm as a glove. One time you take removed the vole from the trap, hold it with your "bagged" mitt and turn the bag inside out while slipping information technology off your arm and hand. Be sure to keep small children and pets out of areas where you have set traps.

Baiting

When voles are numerous or when damage occurs over big areas, toxic baits tin can be the quickest and most applied ways of control. Take necessary measures to ensure the safety of children, pets, and nontarget animals, and follow all product label instructions advisedly.

Anticoagulants, often referred to as multiple-feeding baits, interfere with an animal's blood-clotting mechanisms, eventually leading to death. They probably are the safest type of rodent bait for employ around homes and gardens, because they are deadening acting, must be consumed during a period of v or more days to be constructive, and have an effective antidote, vitamin K1, making it safer to use around children and pets. Anticoagulant baits are available at some county agriculture commissioners' offices as well every bit at retail stores.

You can't utilise some anticoagulants such every bit brodifacoum and bromadiolone because of the potential risk they pose to predators such equally cats and dogs. Check the label advisedly to ensure it lists that the bait is suitable for use on voles or meadow mice.

Because the pest must feed on anticoagulant baits during a period of 5 days, the bait must be available until the vole population is under control. Usually baiting every other day for a total of 3 applications is effective. As with trapping, bait placement is very important. Place the recommended corporeality of allurement in runways or next to burrows, so voles volition find information technology during their normal travels. Mostly, spot treating—placing allurement in a specific identify, such equally a runway—is the preferred method of baiting, simply in areas of heavy ground cover or if the area you are treating is quite big, broadcasting might exist a better option if the label allows it. When dissemination allurement, be sure to spread it evenly over the infested area. If y'all utilise this technique, yous probably volition have to broadcast every other twenty-four hours for a full of 3 or 4 applications.

Repellents

Commercial repellents are available for protecting plants from voles, but their effectiveness is questionable and their utilise frequently isn't practical. You must employ them before damage occurs. Voles usually damage plants at or just beneath the soil surface, making adequate coverage difficult or impossible. Don't employ repellents to food crops unless the product characterization specifies such use.

Natural Command

Many predators including coyotes, foxes, badgers, weasels, cats, gulls, and especially hawks and owls eat voles. Still, in most cases predators tin can't proceed vole populations below damaging levels. Many predators simply don't hunt close to homes and gardens where control is needed. Most predators have a broad-based diet and readily shift to culling casualty when the number of voles declines. Predators rarely, if ever, take every last vole; thus, a residual population remains. With their extremely high reproductive potential, whatever remaining voles could repopulate an area in a brusk period. With this potential for severe impairment, a homeowner or gardener can't afford to await for a predator to appear but must take firsthand action to forestall the loss of valuable plantings. Effective, immediate activity usually involves baiting or trapping and habitat modification.

As with all animals, natural constraints limit vole numbers. Because populations won't increment indefinitely, one alternative is to do null, and let nature limit the voles. Experience has shown, however, that effectually homes and gardens the natural population peak is likewise loftier, and damage will be above tolerable limits.

Other Control Methods

Couch fumigants such as gas cartridges aren't constructive for controlling voles, because their burrow arrangement is shallow and has numerous open holes. Commercial pest control operators can utilize the fumigant aluminum phosphide nether very express conditions. Electromagnetic or ultrasonic devices and flooding besides are ineffective against voles.

WARNING ON THE USE OF PESTICIDES

REFERENCES

Giusti, G. A. 1994. Protecting Your Garden from Animal Impairment. San Ramon: The Solaris Grouping.

Ingles, L. M. 1965. Mammals of the Pacific States: California, Oregon, Washington. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.

Johnson, M. L., and S. Johnson. 1982. Voles. In J. A. Chapman and One thousand. A. Feldhamer, eds. Wild Mammals of North America: Biological science, Management, Economics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press. pp. 326–354.

O'Brien, J. M. 1994. Voles. In S. East. Hygnstrom, R. One thousand. Timm, and G. E. Larson, eds. Prevention and Control of Wildlife Damage, Vol. 1. Lincoln: Univ. Pecker. Coop. Ext. pp. B.177–182.

Salmon, T. P., D. A. Whisson, and R. E. Marsh. 2006. Wild animals Pest Command around Gardens and Homes. 2nd ed. Oakland: Univ. Calif. Agric. Nat. Res. Publ. 21385.

PUBLICATION INFORMATION

[UC Peer Reviewed]

Pest Notes: Voles (Meadow Mice)

UC ANR Publication 7439

Authors: T. P. Salmon, UC Cooperative Extension, San Diego Co.; and West. P. Gorenzel, UC Cooperative Extension, San Diego Co.

Produced by University of California Statewide IPM Program

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