Voles

VOLE IDENTIFICATION

Description

• Voles are often referred to as meadow mice. However, they are not actually mice at all, despite the similarities they share.
• Voles are small furry rodents that enjoy digging tunnels and eating their weight in plant matter.
• Voles can breed quickly and increase in numbers faster than predators can eat them.

Appearance

• Voles are short and stout animals with dense gray or brown fur.
• Their ears are partially hidden and they have short tails.
• Voles have round and blunted noses unlike moles and shrews.
• Their chisel-like teeth are used to chew grasses and other herbaceous plants, tubers, bulbs, and tree bark.
• Voles use their paws to create large burrows and tunnel systems.
• An average size for an adult vole varies between 5 and 8 inches long.
• Voles look for areas to nest that have heavy plant cover to shelter them from natural enemies including hawks, owls, coyotes, and cats.
• Preferred habitats will include grassland prairies, sagebrush prairies, marshes, meadows, forests, and stream banks.
• Voles will create nests lined with grass clippings and any other soft materials they can find.

VOLE PROBLEMS

Entry

• Voles will not normally enter human homes, as there is not much opportunity for their ideal shelter areas.
• Yards with gardens, unkempt grass, and overgrown groundcover will make great burrowing sites for voles.
• One will be able to identify a vole presence by the pathways created leading to and from their burrowing entrances.

Vole Damage

• Voles cause unsightly damages to yards, trees, gardens, golf courses, and irrigation systems.
• Their burrowing and feeding habits will create damages in a short amount of time.
• Voles, like other rodents, are capable of carrying diseases, but are not a significant source of illness.

VOLE CONTROL

Trapping and Removal

• In most cases, voles are classified as protected, non-game animals that can only be trapped, removed, or destroyed if they pose an immediate threat to health or property.
• Removing voles effectively can be difficult. Professionals at Critter Control of Traverse City will handle the problematic rodents quickly and efficiently.
• Critter Control of Traverse City helps trap and remove residential vole control problems and commercial vole control problems.

Control and Safety

Saplings and young trees can be protected by covering them at the base with cloth, plastic, or wire mesh. Keeping lawns and grassy spaces mowed, trimmed, and weeded also helps discourage vole populations. Fences at least a foot high and buried at least half a foot underground often prove effective at keeping the rodents out of gardens. Call Critter Control of Traverse City for full-service and long-term vole control services. We will get rid of the voles and keep them out with control methods!

We can help you get rid of vole problems.