Vole infestation wreaks havoc on woman’s backyard in Island Lakes | 24CA News

While many Manitobans share images of their wrecked lawns on-line, one Winnipeg girl is aware of the issue all too effectively: voles.

The small, chunky mouse-like rodents tunnel and nest underground. They prefer to munch on seeds and roots have destroyed Gina Remillard’s Island Lakes garden — and never for the primary time.

“I was a little horrified because it means a whole summer of trying to reseed and nurture the lawn again,” Remillard mentioned Monday.

She minimize her grass very quick earlier than the onset of winter, however the voles returned, and he or she fears they are going to be again subsequent 12 months.

Remillard was a canine proprietor, and through that point she did not have an issue with voles.

“I guess they [could] sense the dog being in the backyard, and most of them stayed away,” she mentioned.

Remillard not often sees the voles, which do not usually come out through the daytime. They like lengthy grass and low decks, which offer them with heat and winter safety from predators similar to foxes, hawks and owls.

Voles could cause vital harm to lawns, vegetation and bushes.

“They’re very slow moving and if you see one you can really you can just whack it because they don’t run, but I don’t kill them,” Remillard mentioned. “What’s the point? Kill one and there’s 30 behind them.”

She’s contemplating making use of a particular kind of fertilizer, which has an odour voles dislike, to her garden subsequent fall.

Preventing a vole infestation

Suzy Rayner has been doing pest management along with her firm, Valkyrie Pest Solutions, for 9 years. Rayner says the very best remedy for voles is prevention.

“A good thing to do is to just eliminate harbourage areas and food sources for them. Voles like to eat more natural foods, so they’re going for grains and seeds and the root systems of vegetation,” she mentioned.

Spillage from fowl feeders onto lawns may entice voles, in keeping with Rayner.

Piles of leaves, sticks, or firewood are supreme hiding spots for voles, and ought to be eradicated, or have them be no less than a foot above the bottom, she mentioned.

If a vole infestation has occurred, snap traps can be utilized to assist establish the critters’ paths. But they need to be lined if children or pets frequent the world the traps have been set in.

Rodenticide may also be used, however Rayner does not suggest utilizing it as a result of it is difficult to know the place voles will die after ingesting it, and that may contribute to higher dangers for non-target species like cats and squirrels. 

Even with all these precautions are taken, voles can nonetheless infest a yard.

“You’re never going to 100 per cent to be able to keep them away. They’re a wild animal and they’re out here and they deserve to be here as much as we do,” Rayner mentioned. “But you want to make it so that your yard is less hospitable for them and then maybe they’ll leave you alone.”

Remillard hopes the voles will depart her yard alone.

She is aware of step one towards recapturing her yard is energy raking all the lifeless grass, and reseeding it with a little bit of topsoil.

And she’s wanting ahead to not having to fret about the place to place the little swimming pool for her grandchildren to take pleasure in.

“It’s just a nice little place cause I get full sun in the summer time,” Remillard mentioned. “It’s just just really nice to sit out here when I put my furniture out on the deck and my barbecue and it’s a nice place to entertain.”