Re: OT (?): El Nino's voles and moles

At 01:45 AM 5/1/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear Listmembers,
>   I wonder if others are having more problems with rodent pests this
>spring (thanks to El Nino)? I have voles (I think) that are as brazen as
>the gopher on "Caddy Shack". I watched the little suckers pull down
>Siberian iris and daylily leaves and munch them in broad daylight. I
>suspect the subterranian tunnels and piles of dirt are from moles. Moles
>I can live with.... the voles are a different story.
>   I have searched the major garden sites and multiple parallel search
>engines and they don't offer much advise that sits well with an organic
>gardener, animal lover and bird feeder. I have multiple beds scattered
>over an acre lot. I wouldn't know where to begin to put the
>castor oil stuff (Mole Med??) and I am not sure it works for voles.
>Any suggestions or commiserations??
>Jill
>Zone 7b/8
>NC
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I do have a suggestion: cairn terrier.  A young cairn terrier can run down
a vole, pull apart a pile of rocks, or cairn, to get at one hiding, or dig
him out of the soil.  And they love the sport of it.  We had a cairn that
kept our yard free of voles for about 12 years.  The last year he could
hear and smell them, but couldn't see them.  He was even more frustrated
than I.  Some people use cats, and that works, but if they're not
sufficiently patient for the vole to come to the surface, they won't get
them.  Prior to the cairn terrier, voles ate a 15 foot row of potatoes,
hollowed out carrots (the skin is apparently sufficient to maintain the
green tops so they look perfectly healthy), and one even hollowed out an
eggplant that hung to the ground.  Inclement days, the @#$%^ vole was
sheltered and unseen, pigging out on my eggplant.  

Cairn terriers are expensive, but require no grooming.  Scruff is in.  If
your cash flow is negative, go to your local pound and if necessary, get a
part terrier.  Part terrier won't be as effective as a good cairn, but it's
better than nothing.  BTW, we did get our cairn from the pound.  He was a
bum, and led us a merry chase until we found him a companion and his
"neutering" began to kick in.  I'm crazy about that breed.  Good luck,
Margaret

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