Ground Squirrel and Prairie Dog Solutions

Imagine calling a meeting at your property. It's just you and the ground squirrels that have been tearing up your land and eating your plants. You offer them a few seeds and nuts as you talk to them about how their holes are a safety hazard and explain how much their damage is costing you. After you are done reasoning with them and recommend where they can go to get rid of the fleas so they lessen the chances of carrying bubonic plague, you say your goodbyes. The ground squirrels then grab a few things from their burrows and scurry off your land to a far away place. Now wake up! :) If you have land that provides food, water and nice ground for shelter, ground squirrels are going to want to live there. Coyotes, hawks and eagles will help control their populations, but often there are too few predators and too many ground squirrels. The Burrow Blocker machine modifies their habitat by eliminating their burrow. The ground squirrels that are trapped underground are ...

Is the grass starting to come up in your area? We finally got some rain and now our animals have something to eat in the pasture. Every morning, our horses, miniature donkeys, llamas and sheep all wait anxiously to run, play and graze. With the high hay prices, it's essential to have a safe and healthy pasture for grazing. Before the grass gets too high, it's a good time to do a safety check. If you have horses, be sure to be on the look out for Yellow Starthistle. It doesn't take much for it to take over a field and it is very poisonous to horses. Starthistle causes nigropallidal encephalomalacia, also known as chewing disease. Only horses are known to be affected by this fatal nervous disorder, so make sure your pasture is free of Yellow Starthistle. For more information visit UC Davis' IPM site: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7402.html While you are out there checking on what's starting to grow in your pasture, be sure to watch out ...

Happy Valentine's Day!

Last week, John and Trisha went to the Eco-Farm Conference in Pacific Grove. They came back with lots of useful information and some gopher traps. “The Farm Pest Animal Control Without Poisons” presentation by Thomas Wittman, from Gophers Limited, was a crash course on moles, voles and gophers and how to deal with them in an effectively green way. Check out www.gopherslimited.com for excellent videos on controlling moles, voles and gophers. Since the Burrow Blocker is designed for ground squirrel control, John is always on the lookout for a way to deal with gophers, moles and voles. When John got back from the conference, he went out at the ranch with his grandsons, and set a few cinch traps from Gophers Limited. In less than an hour, they had caught a gopher. Another way to deal with too many rodents, is to encourage natural predators to take care of them. Did you know that an owl family can eat more than 1,000 rodents per year? That’s a lot of gophers, voles and mice. Since...

Here is our second attempt at a Burrow Blocker demo video. Can you see that I discovered a fun video app on my phone? The Game Your Video app lets you add "flavor" to your video. I'm not sure how Mike feels about me adding a little Charlie Chaplin flavor to his demo. It's a silly little video that still shows how simple and entertaining filling ground squirrel holes can be.

After much anticipation...our first video demo of the Burrow Blocker is here! Professional videos may film for 6 hours to get less than 6 minutes of footage. I'm happy to say that I was able to create it on my phone in much less time. What did you think of all of our helpers? We have quite the pack at the ranch, but only Summer, Haley and Daisy made the cut. :) Did you hear the donkeys hee-hawing in the background and the plane flying overhead? I like to think all of the extra stuff added some character.