Vole Information

Voles

Voles are a nasty pest that destroy anything they see and are hard to get rid of but are easy to see if you have a problem. 

Here are two voles that I caught in my yard as you can see they almost look like a russian hamster.  They are usually brown or grey.  They have beady little eyes because of the dark tunnels they have a great sense of smell over Eye sight. 

Vole Diet:  Any seeds(especially Bird Seed), tubers, tree needles from pine trees, bark from fruit trees is their favorite, various green vegetation such as grass and clover as well as a lot of garden vegetation, and insects. Dead animal or other voles.

Vole Tunnel

Vole Habitat: Heavily dense grass, they love mulch because it forms tunnels easily and it hides them from predators.  They mostly live underground and hate coming to the surface during daytime hours but are active under ground during daytime.  That's what makes them dangerous they are continuously breeding and feeding.

Vole Exit Hole with traps

Vole Prevention: Remove heavy vegetation, Also try not to use mulch or try not to use it heavily,  Try using some vole traps.  That link is for my review site on vole and mole traps.  Keep the areas where activity is seen well mowed since voles hate being in the opening.  Also us a gravel barrier to stop their digging.  Voles choose the easiest digging path.

Their are 70 species of voles and they range from 3-7 inches and breed like crazy.  A vole gives birth to 5-10 pups every 3 weeks.  The babies are sexually mature in 1 month.  So one vole can produce 85-170 more voles in a year. 

Vole Predators: martens, raccoons, owls, hawks, falcons, coyotes, foxes, snakes, the red tailed hawk, weasels, cats and dogs(jack russels and other "ratting" dogs) eat voles.