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Catching voles

The vole, not to be confused with the mole under any circumstances, is a common pest in gardens and on agricultural land. Their underground activities can cause considerable damage to plants and infrastructure and also pose a danger to livestock. DEUFA uses conventional vole traps (wire traps and also live traps) to enable effective, non-toxic control of these pests in a sustainable way.

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Vole

Appearance: brown/grey, light grey or beige on the belly
Size: 12.5 to 22 cm with hairy tail half the body length
Droppings: dark, up to 8 mm long

Dangers: Transmission of a large number of pathogens that can be transmitted to humans

Occurance: Intensively overgrown places near water, such as meadows, moors and ditches. Close to humans, they prefer intensively cultivated gardens, flower and vegetable beds as well as fruit and vegetable gardens.

Voles live mainly in underground burrows and tunnel systems and rarely leave the burrow. The tunnels are up to 1 m deep and up to 100 m long. So-called transportation passages run to the feeding areas only a few centimetres below the surface. Food is stored in deeper burrows, near which the vole also sleeps.

When burrowing, the voles bite through the soil with their teeth. The mounds visible on the surface are therefore fine-grained and interspersed with root remnants. Compared to the mounds of a mole, the mounds of voles are much flatter.

Voles are hunted by natural enemies such as weasels, cats, martens, foxes and badgers, as well as birds of prey, and therefore spend a lot of time in the underground tunnels.

Food: Voles are herbivores and feed on the roots, tubers or bulbs of crops such as fruit trees, potatoes, beets, asparagus, lettuce, hops or vines that are underground. This clearly distinguishes voles from carnivorous moles!

Reproduction: They reproduce during the warm season.

How does your vole infestation usually manifest itself?

Vole burrows tend to be oval with a diameter of up to 7 cm. You will find fine-grained, loose soil at the entrances and exits.

In contrast to the carnivorous mole, voles only feed on plants and therefore like to cause damage in vegetable and fruit plantations. On the one hand, they eat the root system of plants from underground tunnels. Secondly, the tunnels penetrate the rooted soil under trees, for example, destabilizing them.

Pest control with vole traps

The method of poison-free pest control for voles is the use of vole traps. There are also snap traps and live traps for voles. You can find an overview of DEUFA's vole traps in the article “overview and advantages of DEUFA traps”.

Steps before setting up the vole traps:

  1. In general, you should wear gloves and pay attention to hygiene when dealing with the vole problem. This is mainly to avoid injuries and to maintain hygiene. When working in infested soil areas, you will come into contact with rodent excrement, whereby gloves prevent the transmission of disease and reduce injuries.
  2. You can rarely solve a vole infestation with just one trap. It is advisable to set up several traps in as many holes as possible in the affected areas.
  3. You can recognize inhabited tunnels by fresh traces of soil, e.g. in the form of small mounds or newly created damage in your bed, around trees or in grassy areas.

Installation and setting up the trap:

  1. To set the mousetrap, please follow the steps in the relevant instructions. Voles are attracted by vegetables (carrots, potatoes, celery, etc.). Do not use animal products as bait. This prevents moles from being caught.
  2. Place the baited and tensioned traps in the holes and cover the traps with a bucket, for example (weigh the bucket down if necessary).
  3. Some trap types must be fixed in the aisle hole; follow the instructions in the manual.