Thanks for the ideas! eric, they've been eating my foot-tall broccoli plants leaf by leaf, and have chewed sturdy indoor-grown seedlings down to the ground the day they were planted. I'd probably have to keep them under row covers all season. I spent Sunday clearing out a rock pile and a stack of sod where I've seen them hide and cutting all the grass in the borders. Then I put out mouse traps baited with almond butter and caught a half dozen voles within a day, of all different sizes. A whole family of them must have moved in. The landowners have mowed the meadow, which will make the voles more visible to predators. We have hawks and eagles circling overhead, and a fox has been hanging around. But I have a feeling I'll need to keep some traps out indefinitely, unless I get an owl for a tenant.

Pam, I used to stuff mothballs down the holes, and sprinkle moth flakes on the surface. They just moved on to attack another area. Then came back after the stink had faded. I think it may work if the infestation isn't too bad, but I was under seige last year. Chipmunks, another pest, will shove the mothballs out of their holes as fast as I drop them in. If I put a rock over the hole, they simply dug a new exit nearby. If the damage turns out to be really bad in the spring, I'll probably continue using mouse bait blocks, but sprinkle moth flakes on the surface. It gets so expensive that it's depressing. Money that could be spent on more hostas. I've read that the vole populations naturally rise and fall periodically, so I'm just in a bad phase right now. Papou~ Don't envy us. The January thaws have only been happening for the past few years. The gardens used to be frozen solid until the end of March. The freeze/thaw cycles wreak havoc on many plants and shrubs. Right now we again have snow on the ground. Who knows what will happen next week. Dot~ I do have cats, and used to let them out. I had no rodent problems, and they also cleaned out my neighbors yards too. Once I started keeping them inside, my neighbors noticed they suddenly had voles, moles and chippies doing damage to their lawns and gardens. One neighbor moved here with children who chased any neighbor's cats with sticks, trying to beat them. They called dogs to them and tried to poke their eyes out through the bordering fences. My cats were kept in as soon as I saw this. In addition to rabbits and deer, we also have possum, raccoons and skunks. Last straw was a fox family moving in. Some of these critters could kill a cat outright. My cats all have their shots, but...If a raccoon or fox had rabies and fought with my cat, the injured animal could come home with rabies saliva on its fur and pass rabies to us while we tended to it. Best to keep my kitties inside, and deal with the voles as best as I can (not well). Ken~ I am using bait stations, just not the PVC variety. They do definitely help a LOT. It's just hard to completely cover every area, and keep them refilled all of the time. I spend a fortune on mouse bait blocks. Between the bait blocks and the slug bait, I'm going broke. :o( Denny~ Pam is right. Voles can climb, at least a little. I've had them climb up into smaller pots sitting on the patio and eat the entire hosta crown. I suspect they may be the culprits who went up the drainage holes in my whiskey barrels and ate all of the tulips and crocus I tried planting there one year. I would also think that a pot could restrict the growth of a large or giant variety. A few years ago I transplanted a Frances Williams that had roots at least 2 feet deep. A year or two later I could see fat new roots spreading out sideways along the surface, under the pine bark. They were about 3 feet long, in each direction. I don't have any pots that big. Thank you for all of the suggestions. I've just been depressed and whining, looking for sympathy. Pathetic. ~Bunnycat (Nancy)

I am quite certain squirejohns critter is a shrew, neither a vole or mole. Franks is definitely a mole, and even young ones have the huge digging feet in front. John's shrew is a different species than the one I am familiar with, which is smaller and with a very sharply pointed muzzle (better to eat you with, my dear) filled with really sharp teeth. My shrew has tighter skin(better for frequenting houses or fallen trees during its hunts for food, which is always). The ones I have seen are smaller than an adult church-mouse and have a shorter tail. I have both voles and moles, and both leave the digging trails. Following along a vole run I find there is a hole about every 4 feet or so but the run can be easily seen connecting the holes. In my opinion john's shrews are there because there was a vole problem,and still may be. I think in my case this this exists since my major vole damage to my hostas is much dimiinished, as stated in my previous posting about voles eating my acorn squash. My neighbor next door had set traps with peanut butter and claimed he'd catch4-5 voles a day, but he never saved any to show me. I didn't doubt him since I knew I had a vole problem. Nasty little dudes ate the center out of my huge S&S. Three trails led to the plant and when I dug it up they led to holes right under where the crown should have been. I have a hunting dog and don't like to use poisons or traps. While it is not likely she will eat bait, or a poisoned critter, I don't want to chance it. My lawn suffers the worse. I would need to use a roller on it once a week if I cared about it looking nice. But I have very few problems with slugs damaging my hostas either. So I am guessing shrews are helping me control the vole and slug problems. If I had to declare ROYALTY to outdoor critters, my top ten list would include crowns for shrews and toads and I treat them royally. I would place THE Regal Crown on the toad's head, only because the shrew is such a voracious eater when voles get scarce they may eat toads, but I doubt if a toad would eat a shrew. But now I remember how big the Rio Grande Toad is - they could eat a rat. (lol) Never say never. Les

I asked this threads owner for permission and got it, to post a sub-thread on this subject. I, actually, have another attempt at scientific slug killing tests, but for now, here's a recent, VERY UN-scientific run at the mollusks. I was resting on the front porch steps when a slug crawled up one of the runners and onto a step. I just so happened to have a jug of Ortho Bug-Geta Plus within reach, so I got out a pellet and placed it in the path of the nasty. It right away started munching on it. I could actually see it gnawing. It never made it off that porch step. And NO, I did NOT step on it! So why do we still have some slugs? Because the lil' buggars get eggs laid before we get them all gone. The saga WILL continue, but Metaldahyde is allowing a lot of control, and we still have our cats (vole patrol), worms, frogs, tree frogs, and so forth. Using this method has costs. When the first nubbins first start showing in spring, apply. First week of July, apply (adjust for your zone and this years climate). First of September, apply. We have visited several gardens in about a 90 mile radius from us this time of year, and, no bragging, just appreciation of Metaldahyde, ours is obviously still in much better 'touring' condition. An aside, we go for the Bug-Geta PLUS because the PLUS ingredient gits cutworms, thrips, and a few other baddies. From my point of view, the very well buried, information wise, information is that the ingredient that does the cut worms et. al. is also reputed deadly to honeybees. YOUCH! Soooooo, the solution to that is to wait until 'O-Dark Thirty', when the bees are back home asleep, to apply this product. The nasty bee harmful ingredient is only viable for about 8 hours, so if you apply at dusk-thirty, by the time the bees are back at work it's harmless. I know this policy is working because after several years of using this product as described, we still have a plethora of, and many different species, of bees. Now if only I could figure out how to selectively make the sweat bees go 'somewhere else'. Modern living through careful chemistry, fwiw, hh