Durango semi-weekly herald., 1902-12-22
WAYS OF DESTROYING
PRAIRIE DOGS

o
Numerous remedies have been
| tried to eXterminate prairie dogs,
gophers and ground squirrels with a
certain amount of success. but as
rule the problem is as great as ever.
TO cope with it successfully measures
and remedies should be used that are
simple. easily handled, available on
large scale and not too costly. The
cost on large ranches should not ex-
ceed eighteen cents an acre and
should fall as far short of this as
possible. Among the measures that
succeed well enough on a small scale
or under special conditions are trap
ping, drowning destruction by do
mesicated ferrets and capture in sand
barrels and straw barrels placed over
the holes. On a large scale, poison
ing and fumigating have yielded the
best results.
The poisons most in favor are
strychnine and cayanide of potassium.
Phosphorus also has been used and is
an ingredient of many of poison mix
lures sold in the store. 1t is eff
ficient but its use it attended with
danger. Cyanide of potassium kills
quickly and is an excellent poison
but it is sometimes difficult to admin
lister. chiefly on account of its odor
which is offensive to most animals.
Like phosphorus, it is dangerous to
mand and must be handled with great
care. Strychnine is probably the
best and most satisfactory poison
now known for the destruction of
prairie dogs. 1t can be obtained
everywhere usually at moderate
price and its use is simple. The
minimum dose necessary to kill prair-
lie dogs is not known but it safe to
say that the quantity recommended
in the Peters formula-three ounces
to bushel of wheat-is excessive.
Two ounces is doubtless sufficient
and "a ounces is probably enough.
For groundsquirrels one ounce to the
bushel of grain is ample. The strych-
nine sulphate should be dissolved in
warm, water, in which the grain
| should be soaked for twenty four or
thirtysiy hours until all is absorbed.
Some experiments find this sufficient.
| Others prefer to sweeten the grain by
| stirring in quart or two of molasses
and sprinkling with enough corn meal
made into pellets without any
whole grain. Another way to ad-
minter strychnine is to introduce
| small quantities in prunes or raisins,
in pieces of apple, carrot or turnip
or on bread and butter. In the last
case it is said that the strychnine
should be sprinkled on buttered bread
and then coated lightly with syrup,
after which the bread is cut in small
squares and placed around the bur
rows. The cost of strychnine sui
phate, as customarily sold in the
west, is sl50 to 81 an ounce. 1t
comes in one-eighth-ounce bottles
which usually retail for twenty-five
cents.
Assuming that two ounces is the
quantity necessary to poison bushel
of grain. it would cost about s5 a
bushel. Allowing a tablespoonful to
the average quantity, necessary to
scatter about each hole and allowing
fifty holes to the acre. bushel OF
grain will poison forty acres at a
cost OF lZ12 cents an acre. A man
can scatter poisoned grain over fifty
acres or more a day. hence If labor
costs one dollar a day. the expense
for an acre would be two cents, which
added to the l212 for materials, makes
the total cost l4la cents an acre
The first application of the poison, Il
carefully made in winter, may bt
counted on to kill seventy-five ol
! eighty per cent of the animals ant
has been known to kill as high as min
ety-five per cent at a cost of less thai
fifteen cents an acre. The secont
application a week or two later is aim
ed at the few remaining occupie,
holes, which should not average NOR,
than two or three to the acre AM
the cost should not exceed one o
two cents. If any animals remain
they may be killed by bisulphide o
carbon and in many cases 1t is bette
to do away with the second poisonin
) and use bisulphide to kill off thos
!, that are left after the first poisoning
q Field and Farm.