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| Author |
Message |
    
ANN COLLIER (Dres)
| | Posted on Sunday, Nov 12, 2000 - 5:58 pm: |   |
we are buying new property, and have noticed many gopher holes.... my questions are should i be concerned about the horses twisting, or worse yet breaking a leg in one of them..?? and how do you manage the gopher problem... please don't tell me to find CADDIE SHACK help..LOL.
dres |
S. T. Bruce (Kari)
| | Posted on Sunday, Nov 12, 2000 - 6:33 pm: | |
Why don't you check with your state fish and game bureau to see if there is anyway to remove the gophers. We don't have gophers in my area but we do have woodchucks. I can't recall ever hearing of a horse being injured by stepping in one of their burrow holes but of course it is quite possible. |
Bonita (Bonita)
| | Posted on Monday, Nov 13, 2000 - 9:45 am: | |
Hi Ann - Definitely check into a nice (nice?) way of getting rid of your gophers. Like Kari, here in northern VA we have woodchucks rather than gophers, and there have been many cases of both cattle and horses (ridden and unridden) not just twisting, but BREAKING their legs unexpectedly in these natural traps, which are 9-12" wide and go straight down 3-4' to start! Farmers around here regularly shoot the little varmints and then are faced with having to fill in the land mines before another resident moves in.
Good luck, Bonnie |
JP Lisle
New Member
Username: Jp55
Post Number: 3
Registered: 3-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, Oct 29, 2002 - 8:25 pm: | |
Hi Ann - When we bought our 5 acres (a year and 7 mo. ago) it had approx. 100 gopher mounds. I checked around (in Texas) and consulted with several varmit catching businesses. The concensus was, that was too much property to permanently get rid of them but it is a managable problem IF you're willing to stay on top of it. I tried everything and found success with trapping the gophers. I now have an occassional mound, and I promptly set a trap and then it's gone. I became very aggressive with my program when my Paint stumbled in a hole and was laid up for 8 months. Good luck! Jan |
ANN COLLIER
Member
Username: Dres
Post Number: 133
Registered: 10-2000
| | Posted on Wednesday, Oct 30, 2002 - 9:47 am: | |
Jp lisle... thanks for your success story.... i still have the holes, but they don't seem to pose much threat... as of yet... what has been threatening is the holes left from the horses grazing after the rains, then they dry and crack open even bigger.... them are big holes.!
i have been getting yards of dirt delievered early summer and filling them in,.. i found this is the only way to make the pastures safe.. i figure it will be a maintainace problem yearly, and hope that i can continue to get free dirt..
Ann.. |
