There are a variety of pests that invade yards, lawns, and gardens. Gophers, which are large, furry rodents, can cause major damage to a home’s landscaping. Currently, there are 34 different pocket rodent species known to be located in the western hemisphere. The United States is home to 13 of these species.
If you have gophers in your yard, you may have noticed that they burrow and consume a considerable amount of vegetation. Their burrows will have a large number of tunnels, many of which may span 200 to 2,000 square feet. Furthermore, they also consume about 60% of their body weight on a daily basis. In addition to loving to eat roots, they also consume herbaceous plants, trees, shrubs, grasses, and flowering plants.
On average, gophers will live between one to three years. While they usually breed once or twice a year, this is most often during the spring. Each of their litters tends to have three to four offspring. It’s important to note that by the time these offspring are five weeks old, they are already weaned and able to create their own burrows. Given this, a few generations of gophers can create a significant amount of damage.
While some homeowners may attempt to get rid of gophers on their own, hiring gopher services to remove them is more effective. If you’ve seen any gophers or evidence of their presence in your yard, you can contact gopher services to get ride of them. Since they can tunnel up to 2,000 feet, when your neighbors have gophers, there’s a good chance that they will invade your yard next.
Since gophers do cause significant property damage, it’s important to ensure that all of the gophers and their offspring have been removed. While some gopher abatement services may exterminate these pests, others will get rid of gophers by trapping and removing them from the premises. Getting rid of gophers in this way is considered to be more humane than extermination.
When you contact a gopher abatement service, they will be able to provide you with more information on gopher removal. At this time you can also discuss whether or not to have these pests exterminated or removed. You may also want to find out if there is anything you can do to prevent a further infestation.