Discussions

Bought a place out by Douglas  
Property is full of gophers, holes all over. I want them gone as I have dogs.  
Is Shooting them the best way to get rid of them permanently or is there any terriers that I can rent to come out and catch and kill them?  
What has everyone found to be the best way to get rid of them. Yard site is basically field. Not much vegetation.

Are they the larger ones, that are called a Richardson ground squirrel.  
Not this is just my opinion but shooting is a good solution, but is easy not to get them all unless someone has the time to go out more than once.

I'd like to think that your dogs would enjoy having a few (or many) gophers to harass. It's like a good canine video game.  
If the gophers are harassing your dog, well, I'm not sure what to say. Maybe you need another more assertive dog. Or maybe a cat or two.  
If the gophers are well organized and systematically taking over - then this sounds like an x-files type of thing and I have no advice. I'd leave.  
Back in the day we used to sport shoot gophers. Actually I remember getting 2 cents a tail at the municipal office. We bought 22 cartridges at McLeods for 50 cents a box for 50 so profit margin wasn't high. Saturday 9:00 a.m. we would walk to McLeods, 22's over shoulder, and buy our day's supply of bullets. We were only 12. Times have changed  
But shooting gophers isn't effective in ridding them.  
There's poison, but dog might get into that, as well as other things  
On my friend's farm, when gophers got completely out of hand, we would hook up hose to the exhaust of an old John Deer tractor and shove the other end of the hose into a gopher hole and then run around with a shovel filling in wherever the exhaust came out of the ground. The pasture was then good for a year or two.  
This also worked well for rats around old farm buildings.  
Come to think of it, dogs are wary of rats. Are you sure it's gophers you got?

I've used this before and had success. You have to find the active tunnel and set the trap. I baited it with peanut butter.  
 
https://www.cabelas.ca/product/110360?productVariantId=303380&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItNeqqrjs6AIV4__jBx2ixgDxEAQYAiABEgJE-PD_BwE

I have a large bucket of gopher doom I can sell you. It got rid of my gopher problem. text me at 204-729-5604.

Sent you a P message

Did you find someone to shoot your gophers yet?  
My grandson and I are available anytime when it warms up a little  
Thanks  
204-729-8344

Shooting gophers is good sport but won't rid you of gophers in the long term. Just like mice, for every one you see there are a dozen more. They will breed faster than you can buy 22 those cartridges.  
 
Someone above mentioned using a high powered rifle for plinking gophers. That's very very noisy, very expensive, annoys the neighbors and only useful for sighting in said gun once a year or so. Said plinker probably drives a very large and noisy truck too. :-)  
 
Trapping certainly won't keep up with the gopher birth rate - unless you invest in a very lot of traps.  
 
Poison is an option, but only, in my opinion, if applied by a qualified exterminator. The inexperienced shouldn't mess with poisons, even less than they should mess with guns. Unintended consequences.  
 
Vehicle exhaust, a hose and a few friends with shovels is probably the best option. It all depends on the circumstances - the extent of the infestation and the number of animals.  
 
I destroyed a lot of gophers in my young life, mostly about the time JFK was killed. I actually feel bad about it now. I certainly hope that God isn't especially fond of gophers.