In the past someone on this forum post this:"Mix chlorine bleach and ammonia cleaner and pour down their holes. Mix about half and half. Mix outside just before you pour it in their holes. It makes ammonium chloride gas which will poison them in their dens. Do not breathe the gas."

My question-will this kill plants? I have three muskadines (I know it's misspelled) vine that I water. the moles & gophers has come to the water. I don't want to kill my vines.

When I had a lake lot on Lake Palestine in E. Tx I had gopher problems too. I bought several traps as the neighbor suggested. Watch for a new dirt push up, dig it out and set the trap in the run and leave hole open. They will push dirt back to fill the opening and the trap gets them. You have to tie something to the trap and anchor it as sometimes they don't die but will back down into the hole and take your trap with it. I always left the dead gopher in the run. Took a few months, but finally I won and they were gone. If you snag one that didn't die, pull it out and take a shovel to it but try to miss the trap! Don't forget, toss the body back in the hole.

This is the style of trap I used. The flap is far back so as they push the dirt to fill the hole, the trap trips while the front part of the rodent is over the jaws. Most I caught were killed at the head or just behind the head. The few that weren't dead were caught and couldn't get loose. You will actually hear them screaming in the hole. I used a metal fish stringer hooked to the trap and to a stake in the ground to keep them from dragging my trap away into their burrow.

I don't want to use poison of any kind, my dogs think there's nothing better than gopher. I've used the exhaust from my gas tractor, but it's to hot to last very long. As far as the moles, their runs might to loose to hold the exhaust.

Mustard gas is a blistering agent, learned that in the army, this gas I'm wanting to try now works on the lungs.

Anyway, we'll find out if it works.

I'm in the same boat. Planting over a hundred trees this past spring and trying to keep them alive.
I've put a few of those poison peanuts out but real weary of making sure those varmits stay buried. I don't want any other critters eating a dead mole or gopher and dying from the poison.
I'm trying traps as well. So far only one though. :?

I've never seen one die outside the hole but maybe i'm not looking. I doubt if an animal big enough to eat one would get enough poison to be affected. My labrador retard inhaled a pack of mouse poison before I could stop him but he wasn't affected. Jim

I have used .410 shotgun with 2 1/2" number 6 shell and 22 shot shells. Best results with dropping rat poison down their holes.

I"m so dissapointed..I thought this was going
to be about Minnesota!

try propane, since its heavier than air it might work. stick tiger torch in hole and give them a shot.

If you mix ammonia and bleach, you may find that gophers are the least of your problems. It is chlorine that it released, though, not mustard gas.

I could put you in touch with my SIL about renting her miniature dachshund. He's killed seven moles and one squirrel just in the past week.

NEVER try to mix bleach and ammonia does not matter how you do it it is deadly also back in WW1 called mustard gas but either way that is a good way to get your self dead or others including animals sorry but to me that is just plan and simple stupid. Sort of like the kids who used a hammer and the crack in the side walk to hammer 22 shells sooner or later some one goes to the hospital

Quoting Removed, click Modern View to seeHow do you catch them & hold them while you pour it in their little holes? :lol:
Gopher bait from local feed store. Strychnine laced maize....dump a tea spoon in every mound (pierce with nail bar to find tunnel)...has worked great for me for over 20 years in east Texas.

Quoting Removed, click Modern View to seeHow do you catch them & hold them while you pour it in their little holes? :lol:

This summer I've had good luck with Sweeney's poison peanuts. I get it at the local farm store. Comes in a funnel shaped yellow plastic bottle. The label says it's for moles and underground gophers but it works for striped gophers too. Just pour a few pellets down the hole and you won't see gophers anymore. No worry about damaging plants. I tried the chlorine-ammonia and smoke bombs to no avail. Jim