Voles are small rodents related to mice, rats, hamsters, and guinea pigs. If you suspect you have them in your yard, you need to call a professional Salt Lake City pest control company like Pest Pro Pest Control as soon as possible to eradicate them.
In this handy guide, you’ll learn how to identify voles, the problems they can cause in your yard, tips for preventing them, and what to do to deal with them effectively.
How To Identify Voles
There are over 150 species of voles – in the United States, they’re often called meadow mice or field mice. However, their closest relatives are the lemming and the muskrat. Voles have a small, stocky body that grows between three and nine inches long. Their tails are longer and hairier than those of mice, and their ears and eyes are smaller. Their heads are more round than those of mice.
Voles in Salt Lake City breed quickly. A mating pair can produce up to 100 new voles in the space of a year. This means your vole problem could explode exponentially, which is why you need professional pest control services from Pest Pro Pest Control to help you get rid of voles in Salt Lake City.
The Problems Voles Can Cause On Your Property
Voles eat plants, dead animals, nuts, and fruit. However, they prefer plants and can decimate your yard. They easily girdle trees, eating all the bark in a circle around the tree, which can kill off the part of the tree above the ring of removed bark.
Voles can also cause significant damage to your lawn, especially in winter under the snow. They’ll eat all your grass down to the crown, the growing point. They also create elaborate runway systems that look like someone’s taken a shovel and made a maze in your yard.
If you see any signs of voles on your property, you need immediate rodent control in Salt Lake City to help you eradicate them before they cause more problems.
Tips For Preventing Voles In Salt Lake City
By now, you’re sure to want to know how to control voles in Salt Lake City. Here are some tips to prevent them in the first place:
- Mow your yard until it stops growing in the fall, then mow it shorter than usual to minimize the damage voles can cause over the course of winter.
- Move firewood stacks and compost piles away from your house, out to the perimeter of your yard, to remove hiding places for voles.
- Clear your yard of debris and fallen leaves.
- Clean up any fruit or nuts dropped from trees in your yard.
- Protect trees and shrubs with tree wraps or ¼ inch hardware cloth set into the ground around them.
Vole control products are available but not advised for two reasons. First, using them is labor intensive. Second, there’s a risk to other animals and birds in your yard. You could also use standard mouse traps, but again, that’s labor intensive and a risk to other animals they may attract. Your best option is to partner with a pest control company like Pest Pro Pest Control to deal with your vole infestation near your Salt Lake City home.
Call The Professionals For Effective Vole Control
Pest Pro Pest Control is a family-owned and operated company that we started in Salt Lake City in 2010. We have a solid 5-star rating on Google with hundreds of reviews and an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Our pest control technicians are highly trained and know the best way to control the voles in your yard. Contact us today to schedule your no-obligation consultation and to learn more about our residential and commercial pest control services in salt Lake City.