This just came to my attention. Barbara Damrosch dishes the dirt about these rodents in A Game of Whack-a-Vole:
No sentiment please. No matter how reverent we gardeners may feel about the web of life there are times when the list of predators must include you.
We’re on the same page, Barbara.
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Don, that’s a vole other story! (Ahem, couldn’t help myself) BTW, if chickens can catch them, small furry meat is definitely on the menu. You should see them when they find a mouse nest full of “pinkies”.
Did your cat hunt voles a lot, and then started throwing up and losing weight? Maybe it had volemia. (I know, I know… bad joke).
We don’t have a dog but we do have chickens. I don’t have much to do with the chickens myself, but I haven’t heard any reports of chicken-eating voles. They have so much room to forage it is possible no one’s observed them. We used to have a wonderful hunting cat, but she died young of mysterious causes.
My chickens LOVE voles. My dogs do, too.
I can’t say they do much damage here with our heavy clay soil, but we have seen them…and unfortunately for them, they’ve been seen. Ugh.