Killin' Gophers The Hot Rod Way

[38Chevy454]

I have had trouble with gophers in my lawn and plants around the house. Bad enough dealing with the gopher mounds, but then my dogs dig up chasing the gopher making it 10 times worse.

Can't use poison in case the dogs get it; then I would have much worse problems than the gopher. Traps are only marginally successful, mostly failing. I tried gassing the gopher out with propane, it was not successful. So I used my 1942 Ford 9N tractor to give Mr Gopher a nice carbon monoxide induced permanent nap.

The setup was fairly simple, just sacrifice an old radiator hose to hook up from the tractor's exhaust to one of my cheater pipes, to another hose going into the hole. I just made the idle mixture a bit more rich, ran for about 10 minutes, occasionally give a bit of rev to the engine and some choke for good measure!

So far been about 3 weeks and no more evidence of Mr Gopher. Had to wait and make sure he didn't come back before bragging about my success

 

[jabberwoki]

****** clever boy! I`m going to try that with the fkn moles in my yard.
Thanks.

 

[Brian_B_]

Why are the words to the caddy shack theme song going through my mind right now? I'm all right by Kenny Loggins.

 

[larry_g]

I can remember doing exactly the same with dad back in the '60s. He borrowed the neighbors Ford as it had an undermount exhaust and all our had a top stack.

One of the neighbors had the bright idea to use compressed air to blast the rodents out of the ground and then shoot them. He had a large engine driven, think road work/jack hammer, compressor with a 1" hose. He pumped the tank up, and shoved the hose down the hole, and open the valve. Great nonevent. No rodents flying out of the ground to be shot.

However he had no more rodents. Found out that they are quite sensitive to air pressure and we assumed the rapid change in pressure killed them.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[38Chevy454]

Extra info, that rubber radiator hose and cheater pipe get really hot. I sprayed it down with water a couple times to cool it off. Don't burn yourself if you try similar.

I know it seems obvious, but use an old non-emissions engine. Not your new car or truck - the air on those coming out the tailpipe is probably cleaner than the air going in the intake. (just joking, but you get the point, you want excess carbon monoxide for best results).

I had three main gopher holes I exhausted. Not sure if they were all the same tunnel system and one gopher or from different gophers. All I know is any hole I found got the exhaust treatment.

 

[gsport]

good job... just last week i got the troublesome mole that had been making mounds in my yard. i did it the ole fashion way, patiently sat waiting for him with the 20 guage. it took 4 days to finally get him.. the last two years i had a gopher problem and took care of them the same way.... here's a picture from three years ago stalking my first gopher..

 

[NCMUSTANG]

4 days ??....you need a hobby in the garage

 

[9GUY9]

A coworker recently told me he fixed a mole problem by putting gummy bears in the holes. Apparently they will eat the gummy bears, but their digestive systems are unable to break them down and it kills them.

Death by gummy bears.

 

[chris142]

good job... just last week i got the troublesome mole that had been making mounds in my yard. i did it the ole fashion way, patiently sat waiting for him with the 20 guage. it took 4 days to finally get him.. the last two years i had a gopher problem and took care of them the same way.... here's a picture from three years ago stalking my first gopher..

Out here somebody would have called the cops and reported a man with a gun and you would have gotten a ticket for firing a gun *** amount of feet from a house, a road etc.

 

[Jbullfrog]

I use a 5gal bucket of water and our **** hound to get ground squirrels. The concern is some of there holes took 20 gallons of water and we have has 6" of rain in the last 2 weeks!

 

[volvo]

Be "vewy, vewy quiet" .. ..

 

[darkk]

I did that about a month or so ago. They were gone for a few weeks, now my neighbors moles have come to visit. Gonna have to do it again. Sigh.....

 

[RobSmith]

I've never seen a tractor with an under chassis exhaust !

 

[stormin]

cmere silly gowfer cmere my silly fwend

 

[stormin]

if you wore a red plaid jacket and a lumberjack hat i would have not stopped laughing. of course if you used a few sticks o' dynomite it would have made a great cartoon

 

[Zeke]

Out here somebody would have called the cops and reported a man with a gun and you would have gotten a ticket for firing a gun *** amount of feet from a house, a road etc.

Probably would have had a visit from SWAT.

 

[stormin]

i knew a guy once that did crazy stuff. i think his name was Fudd. I think his first name ahhh hmmmm Elmer??

 

[38Chevy454]

I've never seen a tractor with an under chassis exhaust !

Most of the old Ford N's (9N, 2N and 8N) have the exhaust that exits under and to the rear like mine. Made for easy hook up to gas out the gophers.

No way I could sit out with a gun to shoot them, even though I am out in county outside city limits, no firearm shooting allowed.

 

[WWIIjeep]

if you wore a red plaid jacket and a lumberjack hat i would have not stopped laughing.

Hoodie is the plaid jacket of the New Millenium.

No way I could sit out with a gun to shoot them, even though I am out in county outside city limits, no firearm shooting allowed.

New Mexico is the new Kalifornia?


Our dogs and the barn cats are pretty good at catching gophers, although they also look kind of funny waiting on the lawn with their little shotguns at the ready.

 

[welder4956]

I tried gassing the gopher out with propane, it was not successful.

Ummm, no wonder it didn't work. You forgot Step #2, which is to strike a match by the hole.

I'm alright
Nobody worry 'bout me
Why you got to gimme a fight?
Can't you just let it be?

 

[bgarrett]

= So I used my 1942 Ford 9N tractor to give Mr Gopher a nice carbon monoxide induced permanent nap.=

show more pictures of the 2N
I have a 9n and a 2N, rebuilding the 9N engine now

 

[Mavawreck]

Any thoughts on why this wouldn't work for voles?

 

[toymn6366]

thats how we killed rats after saleing chickens used a 8n ford tractor with choke pulled out and water hoses in the holes and a lot of 22 ratshot grandpa would buy the shells and pay use a penny a rat

 

[oldwino]

try this...not sure how effective it is, but looks like a hell of a lot of fun

 

[38Chevy454]

show more pictures of the 2N
I have a 9n and a 2N, rebuilding the 9N engine now

My tractor is a 1942 9N and is nothing special. Just a decent shape survivor with 12 volt conversion. Needs some attention on the rear axle seals and lift piston leaking, but it works OK. Main use is snow removal with the blade on the back. Here it is, but not much to get excited about.

 

[NUTTSGT]

A coworker recently told me he fixed a mole problem by putting gummy bears in the holes. Apparently they will eat the gummy bears, but their digestive systems are unable to break them down and it kills them.

Death by gummy bears.

I've heard the same with chewing gum.

 

[jvitez]

Knew a guy who found a whole bunch of mice had nested in his little used shed. He thought about it for a while, then got his lawnmower, pushed it into the shed, started it up with a vice grip on the bail handle, closed the door. Mice gas chamber. Awesome!

 

[Jarhead0408]

Freakin Awesome!

 

[Lippyp]

A friend and I rented a barn to work on our cars some years ago, about 100 yards away from it was a huge barn full of grain so there were rats the size of cats around the place. Every so often the rat man would come around with a couple of jack russels, an air rifle and some poison and the numbers would drop for a while.

We started to get problems with stuff in "our" barn getting chewed so we stuffed as many holes around the slab floor up with rags as we could, wedged a hose up the exhaust of one of the vehicles (was actually a classic diesel London black cab) and left it running for an hour or two, the whole slab must have been riddled with tunnels underneath as fumes came up all over the place. It certainly knocked numbers down for a good while. I remember one day we moved a big pile of old straw from outside the back door as we wanted to store an old body shell out there, my friend had a pitchfork moving the straw and I had a shovel, I must have whacked four or five of the buggers as they piled out of the straw, it was like a scene from Tom and Jerry, particularly when my mate thought one had run up inside the leg of his overalls! Needless to say after that we were both seen sporting that essential farmers accessory, string tied around the bottom of your trouser legs!