How it Works
The video to the right demonstrates the techniques recommended by Allen Hurlburt, owner of H&M Gopher Control for using the PERC® system.
Pure exhaust (2.5% carbon monoxide, CO) is captured from a gas engine that drives a compressor, cooled, pressurized, and injected into the burrow of a burrowing rodent. The air in the burrow is purged very rapidly. The rodent is engulfed almost immediately in a high concentration of exhaust gas and overcome before it has a chance to escape or block the burrow. This creates an airless condition in the burrow whereby the rodent is asphyxiated and killed via a lethal level of CO, usually within the first minute.
A T-bar hand piece with a ball valve is on the end of each 3/8″ and 1/2” air hose. Gopher and mole mounds are probed. When the tip of the probe breaks into the burrow, it literally falls into the burrow and is very easy to detect or feel.
Insert the 1/2” hoses first for about 2 minutes. While the 1/2” probe is running, insert the 3/8″ hoses in the surrounding burrows in the same burrow system. Turn off the 1/2” probe and turn on the 3/8″ probes. You are reversing the gas flow and maintaining the level of exhaust gas while forcing the gas into the dead-end burrows for about another 3 minutes.
When treating open burrows such as prairie dog and ground squirrels, replace the probes with the short extension hoses provided. As with gophers, insert the big probe with the hose extension in the hole first and cover it with dirt to help direct the gas down the hole. While it is running, insert the smaller probes with hose extensions in the surrounding burrow openings, especially if gas it coming out of the hole, and cover each with dirt.
With gophers and moles, kick out the dirt of every mound after treatment. This, along with plugging open holes of squirrels and prairie dogs marks the holes that have been treated. If fresh activity is observed the next day or so, it indicates that there is still a live rodent in that burrow that needs another treatment.
NOTE: Never run the 1/2” probe and the 3/8” probe at the same time, the 1/2” probe takes all the exhaust gas in the tank as well as what the compressor will produce while it is turned on.
IMPORTANT! Treat all live holes even if gas is found to escaping from an adjacent openings.
