Voles (meadow mice) are members of the rodent family. They can cause considerable damage to landscape plantings and turf particularly in late winter or early spring when food sources become harder to find.

Voles are small rodents with tiny ears, small dark eyes, and short tails. They can explode in numbers to several hundred per acre where there is a good grassy habitat and lack of natural predators.

Moles, on the other hand, have beak-like noses, tiny rudimentary eyes, no visible ears, and paddle-like front feet with large claws.

Voles seldom burrow long, underground tunnels like moles. Instead, they make runways or paths through the turf canopy and flowerbed mulch. On occasion they use an existing mole tunnel to travel short distances.

Unlike moles that feed primarily on earthworms, grubs, and other insect larvae, voles feed on plants. The bark of thin-barked trees and shrubs is their preferred food. The girdling of these plants can become severe enough that the plants are weakened and eventually die. Succulent plants such as Hosta and turf can often be eaten to the ground, but usually come back once the voles are removed.

• Close monitoring in early fall through winter for runways through the lawn and feeding on shrubs will alert you to their presence.
• Maintaining the turf at normal mowing heights will discourage travel across lawns.
• Keeping vegetation-free areas around young trees and shrubs will prevent hiding places.
• Hardware cloth protective cages 2-3 inches into the ground and about 18 inches high around young trees will prevent girdling.
• Since voles do feed on vegetation, mousetraps baited with peanut butter, oatmeal, pecans, or apple slices placed in the runways or landscape beds will reduce populations. A very successful trapping trick is to place an unbaited mouse trap in front of a hole or run, then place a clay pot over both the trap and hole. The vole will eventually trip the trap trying to escape from the pot.
• Poisonous baits containing zinc phosphide in pelleted form is also effective, but can be dangerous to children, pets, and other wildlife and should be used only in lockable bait stations accessible only to the tiny voles.

Published January 3, 2011

Dr. Wayne Wells is an Extension Professor and Turfgrass Specialist. His mailing address is Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, Mail Stop 9555, Mississippi State, MS 39762. wwells@ext.msstate.edu