From: "William C. Garthright" <billg@inebraska.com>
To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] No voles here
Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 10:30:44 -0500
I don't have any voles.
I was wondering about this, too. I THINK there are voles in Nebraska,
but I've never had any problem with them. I've got mulch everywhere, and
much of it is leaves and straw (along with wood chips), which is
probably ideal habitat for rodents, don't you think? And I don't have
any dogs or cats (the electric wire to keep squirrels out of my fruit
trees does a pretty good job on stray cats, too, I suspect).
However, my yard is absolutely crawling (if you'll excuse the
expression) with garter snakes. They spend the winter under my old,
detached garage, which has huge cracks in the concrete floor. This time
of year, I can rarely work in the yard without seeing snakes. They are
nothing but garter snakes (I'd like to get bull snakes sometime), but
they'd probably take young voles, at least.
I'm in town, so maybe that's the reason? Are voles more of a rural
problem? I still wrap my young trees in the winter, but I haven't seen
any damage on bushes - not even on currants, which someone here said are
very attractive to voles.