Pocket Gophers and Pasture Damage

Particularly during the spring and fall months of the year here in East Texas mounds of earth can be seen dotting the pastureland.

These mounds result from digging by pocket gophers - medium-sized rodents ranging in size from 5 to 14 inches long varying in color from almost white to black. They have chisel-like incisors and small claws on their front feet. Prolific diggers pocket gophers are capable of bringing tons of earth per month to the surface.

Damage caused by gophers includes destruction of garden seed beds, tree roots, utility cables, and irrigation pipes. The large earthen mounds damage haying equipment and their digging can undermine the stability of irrigation ditches and ponds. It is not uncommon to find their mounds inside your garden beds, around the foundation of your home, in the barn, in the corrals, if there's earth - there's a gopher.

Needless to say this damage needs to be controlled and there are various control methods practiced including trapping, deploying electronically control vibration devices, baits, predator scents, etc.

Here on the J Bar D we have our own method of gopher control - Slim - a 22-pound bundle of energy that lives to catch gophers.

Now, all good hunters know you have to be still and quiet so you can target your prey and once you have targeted a location - get down to the business of capture. This includes going where the gophers are - underground whenever necessary to get the little boogers. Nothing is ever easy!

Drought

When farmers and ranchers can be heard talking about the need for a hurricane you know there’s trouble afoot and that’s just what was happening in late summer this year. Our area and much of the rest of Texas has suffered from devastating drought. On November 4, 2009 the USDA declared another 69 Texas counties, in addition to the already designated 70 counties, as primary natural disaster areas.

When we lived in the city, drought meant not watering your lawn or washing your car, but on the ranch the affects of the drought with an additional heat index, of up to 109° on some days, is enough to keep you awake at night worrying.

You worry about the stock tanks drying up. The cattle stand in the shade during much of the day panting from the heat when they should be grazing – they’re loosing weight. The grass in the pastures is turning brown and dying, the annual hay season is abbreviated - there’s hardly enough grass in the pastures for grazing much less harvesting hay.

On the J Bar D Ranch, the rains we have received over the last few weeks have somewhat rejuvenated the pastures, too little and too late to increase the hay harvest, but enough to provide some late season grazing. Now, the balancing act begins of getting the livestock through the winter – keeping them well fed and healthy without putting our bottom line in the ditch. Yep, a tropical storm or a little hurricane in late July or early August would have been a welcome sight!