Voles in the garden: How to drive away the rodents
Created: 09/20/2022, 15:37
By: Constantin Hoppe
Water voles can cause major garden damage.
© Simon Litten/Imago
Voles love bulbs, carrots, celery, and other vegetables and can be quite devastating in a garden.
This is how you get rid of the animals.
Kassel – They are usually a nightmare for gardeners: Whether in the lawn or vegetable patch – the seemingly irrepressible hunger of a vole, such as the water vole, seems limitless and even kills larger fruit trees.
Because by gnawing on the roots or the bark of thicker roots, voles interrupt the water supply, the plants suddenly wither and die shortly afterwards.
Voles primarily attack underground, digging tunnels in the ground and piling up small mounds of earth that the untrained eye can easily mistake for molehills.
If you want to get rid of the rodents, this should be done in autumn or winter if possible: This is when the animals are looking for food and respond particularly well to bait.
Other gardening tasks should also be done in the fall.
Voles and moles should not be confused
However, it is important to recognize the difference between moles and voles: Because moles are under protection, they must not be hunted with traps or even killed.
However, deterring the animals is permitted.
In contrast to the mole, however, voles rarely dig more than five mounds of earth, which are also significantly flatter than those of the moles.
If a pile of dirt is from a vole, the hole will not be in the middle under the pile, but will be slightly off to one side.
voles | |
|---|---|
Species: | Around 150 |
Size: | Between 7 and 23 centimeters long |
Activity: | diurnal and nocturnal |
Distribution: | Europe, Asia and North America |
Getting rid of voles in the garden: Take action in the fall or winter
Traps are the most efficient way to get rid of voles and come in many varieties.
Box traps that catch the animals alive are to be preferred, since other methods could also fall victim to the protected moles, as the garden magazine
Mein Schönen Garten
explains.
If possible, every passage found should be equipped with a trap.
Fresh carrots or celery, which are among the rodents' favorite foods, are particularly suitable as bait.
The traps should then be checked several times a day.
Incidentally, voles are solitary: once a garden owner catches one in the fall, winter, or spring, it's a sure bet that you'll be rid of them all for the time being.
Drive voles out of the garden: These home remedies have proven themselves
Apart from traps or poison, there are also home remedies that have proven effective in the fight against voles.
These take advantage of the rodents’ sensitive sense of smell.
Voles are particularly sensitive to fragrances, as NABU reports, which is why planting elder, lavender and juniper on the garden fence creates a natural barrier.
However, if the mice are already in the garden, there are home remedies for this too: To do this, the corridors must be uncovered and strongly smelling liquids such as schnapps, liquid manure or fermenting buttermilk poured into them - smaller amounts are sufficient.
Afterwards, the aisles should be closed again so that the smell does not escape.
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The smell will make the mice leave their burrows and look for another place to nest.
This method must be repeated regularly so that the mice do not come back, as reported by
utopia.de
.
An advantage of using manure: This is also an excellent fertilizer for the garden.
Drive voles out of the garden: animals are sensitive to noise
Another way to get rid of the little animals is noise: Children or dogs playing loudly in the garden ensure that a vole will not feel at home here, as reported by
utopia.de
.
Robotic lawnmowers have a similar effect: Their constant driving noises annoy the voles until they eventually emigrate.
However, a robotic lawn mower is of course not suitable if voles are having a good time in the vegetable patch, explains
My Beautiful Garden
.
Another reliable way to get rid of voles is with a cat: this is one of voles' natural enemies.
A cat in the garden will either catch the mouse or drive it away with its smell, as NABU explains.
(con)
