I live in Colorado at 8,500 ft. I use old fashioned wooden and wire rat traps set inside a live trap (the live trap is not set but keeps the dog, cat and birds from getting snapped). Rat traps are like a normal mouse trap but are 4"x6". I bait them with peanut butter. People who don't live around chipmunks (or prairie dogs which I have in my pasture) don't realize how destructive they are. My little fir tree I planted 7 years ago is dead this year because they tunneled all under the roots this summer. Where I am, the field mice can carry the Hanta virus and the chipmunks and prairie dogs can carry the Bubonic Plague, both deadly to humans. I maintain that if chipmunks and prairie dogs had long pointy noses like their cousins, sewer rats, people would not think they were cute! I don't poison mine, although that would be easier, because hawks, coyotes, badgers, and my own dog could die from eating a poisoned rodent. And I need every rodent predator I can get. I also try to keep the ground damp around their burrows. They don't dig in the wetland areas of the pastures. Be really careful to not let your cat or dog play with a dead rodent and pick them up with a shovel, not your hands. Plague is transmitted by the rodent's fleas or with Hanta, the feces and urine. Good luck. As long as we are in this drought, the pests will be a real problem.
I live in Colorado at 8,500 ft. I use old fashioned wooden and wire rat traps set inside a live trap (the live trap is not set but keeps the dog, cat and birds from getting snapped). Rat traps are like a normal mouse trap but are 4"x6". I bait them with peanut butter. People who don't live around chipmunks (or prairie dogs which I have in my pasture) don't realize how destructive they are. My little fir tree I planted 7 years ago is dead this year because they tunneled all under the roots this summer. Where I am, the field mice can carry the Hanta virus and the chipmunks and prairie dogs can carry the Bubonic Plague, both deadly to humans. I maintain that if chipmunks and prairie dogs had long pointy noses like their cousins, sewer rats, people would not think they were cute! I don't poison mine, although that would be easier, because hawks, coyotes, badgers, and my own dog could die from eating a poisoned rodent. And I need every rodent predator I can get. I also try to keep the ground damp around their burrows. They don't dig in the wetland areas of the pastures. Be really careful to not let your cat or dog play with a dead rodent and pick them up with a shovel, not your hands. Plague is transmitted by the rodent's fleas or with Hanta, the feces and urine. Good luck. As long as we are in this drought, the pests will be a real problem.