Re: Yesterday, Link to vole information

I did a search on Mark Houpt's Forum and found the following, I remember that 
several people who had problems with voles found these feeding stations to be 
very effective.  I became interested when I found the tunnels all around 
several of my beds after a deep snow melted.  The tunnels were made by 
shrews, and the only damage was they dig like crazy to find insects, worms, 
etc.  They dug up all my tiny mondo grass.  They didn't eat a thing.  The 
most activity was under a bed where there was an abundance of bird seed 
dropping from a feeder.  I have thought about it and can't make a connection 
with the birdfeeder.

I did have the opportunity to observe vole damage at a friends nursery in the 
spring.  He covered all his leftover grasses, perennials, etc., with plastic 
for the winter.  When uncovered there was a little depression in the middle 
of each pot with just stems left.  I also observed activity at a school that 
visited to observe their land lab.  All the perennial beds had leaves laying 
on the ground and the crown or the roots of the plants were missing.  I 
notified the person and charge of the problem and she was appalled at the 
suggestion of using poison in an area frequented by children.  

Sorry I went on and on, I know this is a big problem for a lot of people and 
hope the information below is helpful.

Take care,
Narda

Voles are a major nightmare and ate many of my hostas last year. Poison is 
very effective but you need to create mouse-size runs to put it in and only 
anticoagulants will kill voles. 1-1/2" PVC pipe made up into an inverted "T" 
shape worked for me. The part that lays on the ground is about 24" long. The 
part that sticks up where you load it is about 8" high and in the middle of 
the part on the ground. Put the anti-coagulant poison pellets in the leg of 
the T sticking up and put a cap on it. The voles run through the pipe to get 
to the poison in the middle. If you keep the pipes near active feeding holes, 
you will see the poison disappear nightly. Anticoagulants take about a week 
to kill the voles. I made about 6 of these things and over a period of about 
8 weeks they got the population down to the point I didn't see any more 
activity. They will come back but this keeps them under control in the 
current season. Good Luck. 
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