Try to picture a chubby little mouse with small ears, beady eyes, and a short little tail; that’s a vole. They are cartoonish attractive little creatures that seem to be all head (see the picture) that live outdoors and feed on seeds and shrubbery; they will take over your flower garden if they are not stopped! 

The biggest problem with voles is that they reproduce very fast, they will eventually leave patterns of trails in your lawn, and they eat many of your flowers and seedling shrubs. This picture was taken in Rancho Santa Fe next to a valve box; there were hundreds of voles on three adjacent properties.

Another name for Voles is Meadow Mice. They like to build their burrows under hardscape and on slopes when they can. They are lazy diggers and would prefer to live in irrigation boxes and under rock walls rather than dig their own holes. Voles can be controlled with an anticoagulant bait called PCQ that is currently labeled to be broadcast in the lawns and gardens where they like to run. Voles are grazers and are reluctant to enter bait stations, so the most effective way to control them is to sprinkle the bait near their runways. The bait turns mushy when it gets wet, so put it out after you run the sprinklers and then remember to leave the water off for a couple of days to allow the voles to gather as much as they want! Read the label and do not take chances with pets that might want to share a meal with the Voles!

The label on any pesticide is a legal document and it is illegal for the material to be used in a manner that is inconsistent with the instructions on the label. If you have any questions, there is a phone number on the container that you can call for clarification. The information given here is NOT intended to replace or expand on the label instructions.

You can find vole bait at Grangetto’s, http://www.grangettos.com/  in Encinitas, Fallbrook, Valley Center, and Escondido. Pinpoint cannot do Vole control because we must place all baits in secured, locked, bait stations which are not attractive to Voles. Control of these little creatures is normally done by gardeners because it is somewhat time intensive and must be done with an eye on the pets and the sprinklers.