Do bird feeders attract voles?

The short answer

• Yes, through the seed on the ground, not the feeder itself. Purdue's extension specialists say voles are attracted to feeders where scattered seed litters the ground.
• Voles move to food. In an Ontario experiment, meadow voles used the enclosure stocked with sunflower seed and alfalfa far more (a mean of 30.25 against 17.96), then left when the food was moved elsewhere.
• Most of it happens in winter, out of sight. Voles do not hibernate and feed under snow, so the 1 to 2 inch runways under a feeder show up only at snowmelt. Lawn runways fill in with spring growth.
• Moles are a different problem. Raised ridges and volcano-shaped mounds are a mole, which feeds mainly on earthworms, grubs and ants. Open, clipped runways with 1.5 to 2 inch holes are voles.
• Cut the spill, take away the cover beside it, and guard shrubs in the drop zone with 1/4 inch hardware cloth. Keep rodent poison away from a feeder: owls and hawks eat the voles.

Yes, through the seed on the ground, and mostly in winter where you cannot see it. Purdue's turf and wildlife specialists say voles are attracted to bird feeders "where the seed is scattered and litters the ground," and that under snow they feed on whatever they find. The feeder is not the draw. The spill is, together with any tall grass, ivy or mulch beside it that lets a vole eat without being seen. Fix those two and the runways stop.

Two answers circulate. Pest control pages say a feeder brings voles and must go. Gardeners often blame the tunnels on moles. The first is half right: voles follow food, as the experiment below shows, but they need cover to use it. The second sends people after the wrong animal.

What the experiment found#

Douglas Morris and Jody MacEachern at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, tagged 39 male and 39 female meadow voles in July 2008 and let them move between four 25 by 25 m enclosures linked through a larger one. Every two days they stocked one enclosure with sunflower seeds and alfalfa cubes. Then, on 19 August, they stopped feeding it and stocked a different enclosure instead.

The voles in enclosure 13 drifted out after the food moved, and enclosure 15 filled. The authors' conclusion is that meadow voles "actively selected the best habitat available." Our reading for a yard: a vole within reach of a seed pile will move its range toward it. ICWDM puts a vole's home range at usually a quarter acre or less, so that means the voles already living on your lot and the lots next door, not voles summoned from across town.

Food is not the whole story. The same paper summarizes an Illinois enclosure study (Lin and Batzli, 2001) in which prairie and meadow vole numbers ended highest where cover was high and food abundant, and stayed low in thin cover through emigration. That fits every extension page we read: mow, clear ground cover and pull mulch back. A feeder over short lawn makes a vole cross open ground to eat. A feeder over a bed of ivy gives it a pantry with a roof.

Voles, moles or something else#

The holes and trails under a feeder can belong to five different animals. This is the table we use, built from ICWDM, Penn State, UC IPM and Purdue.

Purdue Extension says moles feed "primarily on earthworms, beetle grubs, ants," while voles eat "seeds as well as leaves and stems of grasses" and "may take advantage of spilled seeds from bird feeders." Size helps too: Purdue gives voles 5 to 7 in including the tail, and UC IPM describes a short tail, small eyes and partly hidden ears. A mouse with a long tail running the same spill belongs on our rats and mice page.

On shrubs, look at the gnaw marks. ICWDM describes vole marks as irregular, at various angles, about 1/8 in wide and 3/8 in long. Rabbits leave larger marks and clip branches cleanly at a 45 degree angle, as our rabbits page covers.

Winter is when it happens#

Voles "do not hibernate," Purdue's turf page says, and ICWDM adds that they are active day and night all year. Under snow they run tunnels along the turf, and the first you see of it is a web of runways about 2 in wide when the snow melts.

That timing is the opposite of most feeder pests. A winter feeding season puts the most seed on the ground at the moment the ground is covered and nothing, including you, can see what eats it. ICWDM says voles eat bark mostly in fall and winter, which is when a shrub beside the feeder gets girdled.

The good news is the lawn. Purdue's turf specialists say the runways "do not significantly damage the turfgrass" and fill in with spring growth. The shrubs and young trees in the drop zone are what to check, at the base, every spring.

What stops it#

1. Put less on the ground. Every agency page we read starts with the food. ODFW's words: reduce "seeds around bird feeders." What reaches the ground depends on what you buy:

Prices are 2026 United States big-bag benchmarks used as defaults in our seed cost calculator. Swap in your own and the ranking can change; the edible fraction and energy columns will not.

Sunflower hearts leave no shells and little whole seed. Loose cracked corn and the millet and milo in a birdseed mix are the worst choice over a vole lawn. Skip the ground feeder in winter, and empty any catch tray or low platform tray daily. The rest of the routine is in seed waste and mess.

2. Clear the snow check. Our working rule, not a tested one: in snow country, rake the drop zone clean just before the first lasting snow, and again in any thaw. Seed buried under snow is seed only voles can reach.

3. Take away the roof. Purdue says mow tall grass in fall, trim low branches and use rock mulch rather than bark in beds. Penn State keeps ground cover at 3 to 6 in by mowing. ICWDM pulls mulch 3 ft or more from tree trunks, and UC IPM clears a 4 ft circle around young trees. So hang the feeder over mown lawn or a patio, not over a groundcover bed, and see where to put a bird feeder for the window and hawk distances that also apply. Give birds their cover in shrubs a short flight away, as native plants and cover describes.

4. Guard what is in the drop zone. Fencing a lawn is not practical. Fencing a shrub or a young tree is. The agencies agree on the mesh and differ on the rest:

In snow country, take ICWDM's height rule: a guard the snow overtops is a guard voles walk over.

5. Trap, if they persist. ICWDM sets mouse-size snap traps perpendicular to the runway, under a box with two 1 in holes to keep other animals out, baited with peanut butter, apple or seed. Penn State checks traps twice a day, and UC IPM says a dozen traps is the minimum for a small garden.

Keep poison away from the feeder#

Oregon's Department of Fish and Wildlife confirmed a great horned owl in the Willamette Valley killed by anticoagulant rodenticide, and notes that a barn owl eats about six voles or rodents a night. Oregon's Department of Agriculture adds that a product labeled for rats and mice in and around buildings cannot legally be used against voles in a garden. In California homes, UC IPM says zinc phosphide, a restricted-use product, is the only toxicant allowed for voles at all.

A feeder yard concentrates the predators that would do this work for free: owls at night, the hawks covered in hawks at feeders, and foxes, which our foxes page finds are usually hunting the voles and mice the spill feeds. Snakes come for the same prey. Poisoning the voles poisons them next.

Where this page stops#

• One experiment. Morris and MacEachern ran 43 summer days in enclosures with one food mix. No study we found has counted voles under backyard feeders or tested seed types against voles.
• Several species. ICWDM counts 23 vole species in the US, 7 of them significant pests. Pine voles stay underground and show no runways, so the snow test misses them.
• Cycles. ICWDM says numbers peak every 2 to 5 years, unpredictably, and irruptions have reached 4,000 voles per acre. In a peak year you will see runways even with a clean feeder.
• Law, one state. Penn State says voles are "nongame mammals and are protected" in Pennsylvania but may be controlled when causing damage. We did not check other states.
• The snow rule is ours. Raking before snow follows from Purdue's account of voles feeding under snow, not from a trial.

ICWDM notes voles carry mites and ticks. As a source of Lyme bacteria a vole counts for far less than a mouse, as ticks and bird feeders explains. Every other feeder problem is matched to its cause on the problems hub.

Frequently asked questions#

Do voles climb bird feeders?

None of the agency or extension pages we read describes voles climbing to a feeder, and every one of them describes voles feeding on the ground. Purdue puts the problem on seed that "litters the ground" under the feeder. So the fix is the ground: hulled seed, a catch tray you empty, and no cover beside the drop zone. If seed is vanishing from the feeder itself, look at squirrels, chipmunks or mice instead.

Are the tunnels under my bird feeder moles or voles?

Look at the surface. Voles make open runways about 1 to 2 inches wide in the grass, with the stems clipped short and small round holes along them. Moles push up raised ridges you can feel underfoot and volcano-shaped mounds of soil. Purdue Extension says moles feed primarily on earthworms, beetle grubs and ants, while voles eat seeds, grass and green plants and may take spilled seed from feeders. One exception: pine (woodland) voles tunnel underground and leave small conical piles of soil, not open runways.

Will vole runways in my lawn grow back?

Usually, yes. Purdue's turf specialists say the runways that appear when snow melts do not significantly damage the turfgrass and fill in with spring growth. The real damage voles do is to bark and roots: girdled shrubs, young trees and bulbs, mostly in fall and winter. Check the base of any shrub within a few yards of the feeder for irregular gnaw marks about 1/8 inch wide.

Should I use poison for voles near my bird feeder?

No. Oregon's wildlife agency confirmed a great horned owl in the Willamette Valley killed by anticoagulant rodenticide, and notes that a barn owl eats about six voles or rodents a night. Oregon's Department of Agriculture adds that a product labeled for rats and mice in and around buildings may not legally be used against voles in a garden, and in California's residential settings zinc phosphide, a restricted-use product, is the only toxicant allowed for voles. Snap traps under a cover, plus removing the spill, do the job without poisoning the predators that hunt your yard.

Sources and further reading

1. Active density-dependent habitat selection in a controlled population of small mammals. Ecology 91(11):3131-3137 (2010) Douglas W. Morris and Jody T. MacEachern, Lakehead University 78 RFID-tagged meadow voles (39 male, 39 female), four 25 x 25 m enclosures and one 50 x 50 m, summer 2008, 43 days; sunflower seeds and alfalfa cubes every two days; mean 30.25 voles in the fed enclosure vs 17.96, then 25.25 vs 11.04 after food moved; voles left when supplements ceased; summary of Lin and Batzli 2001 on cover and food
2. Melting Snow Reveals Tiny Trails (26 March 2014) Tim Gibb and Judy Loven, Purdue University Turfgrass Science Voles attracted to feeders where scattered seed litters the ground; active under snow; runways about 2 in wide; turf fills in with spring growth; mow tall grass in fall, rock mulch, snap traps, rodenticides with extreme caution
3. Moles and Voles: What's the Difference? (26 April 2024) John E. Woodmansee, Purdue Extension Whitley County Mole diet primarily earthworms, beetle grubs and ants; vole diet seeds, grasses, roots and bulbs, may take spilled feeder seed; 2 in runways seen at snowmelt; sizes
4. Voles: biology, damage, and prevention and control methods Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management (ICWDM) 23 US species, 7 damaging; runways 1 to 2 in; gnaw marks 1/8 x 3/8 in, rabbit 45 degree clip; active day and night all year; home range 1/4 acre or less; irruptions to 4,000 per acre; peaks every 2 to 5 years; mesh 1/4 in buried 6 in, above snow depth; mulch 3 ft from trees; traps perpendicular to runway
5. Voles (updated 5 January 2007) Falker, Brittingham and Williams, Penn State Extension Four PA species; runways about 1.5 in; woodland voles leave conical soil piles; 1/4 in cylinders 18 to 24 in high buried 4 to 6 in; ground cover kept 3 to 6 in; peanut butter-oatmeal or apple bait, check twice daily; nongame and protected but may be controlled when causing damage
6. Voles (Meadow Mice), Pest Notes Publication 7439 (April 2023) R. A. Baldwin, University of California Statewide IPM Program Burrow openings 1.5 to 2 in; droppings 3/16 in; 5 to 10 litters a year; fence 1/4 in mesh, 12 in high, buried 6 to 10 in; 4 ft clear circle round young trees; a dozen traps minimum for a small garden; zinc phosphide the only residential toxicant, restricted use
7. Owls and other wildlife dying from rodent bait (news release, December 2013) Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Great horned owl confirmed killed by anticoagulant rodenticide; barn owl eats about one third of its weight, about six voles or rodents, a night; reduce seeds around bird feeders; products labeled for rats and mice in and around buildings may not be used on garden voles (Oregon Department of Agriculture)