If you have a tempting garden to protect, you may be familiar with voles, small rodents that are similar to dear mice with shorter tails. You may only know of them by the tunnels they leave in your lawn and the damage they can cause to your trees and shrubs. Since voles do not hibernate, when everyone else is sleeping during winter, they are still busy destroying your yard. They are active both day and night, tunneling like crazy to create a vast system of tunnels for their whole family to enjoy�right in your front lawn. And voles can reproduce like crazy, with female voles having 3 to 12 litters a year, and around 3 to 6 babies per litter. This means a small vole problem can grow out of control rather fast. The best way to deal with these critters is to try and keep them from getting into your yard in the first place. Getting rid of places they might use for shelter is one thing that can help reduce their numbers. Making sure your yard is tidy and free of too many weeds and tall grass for them to burrow under is one way to keep your yard vole-free. You can protect trees, shrubs, and other plants from getting damaged by surrounding them with wire or plastic-mesh cylinders. You can also catch voles with baited box traps and then set them free far from your home. The main thing to remember is you want to try and take care of the voles taking over your yard before they grow too large in numbers. If that happens, it might be time to call in the professionals to take care of the situation. Have you ever had voles invade your yard? What did you do to get rid of them?