Pocket Gopher Facts

Pocket gophers thrive in a variety of environments and a range of altitudes. Because they are fossorial (live underground) in burrows excavated in the soil, they prefer moist, porous soils with good drainage. Their burrow systems are elaborate, multilayered and may be 500 feet long. These systems are equipped with travel runs, drainage tunnels and chambers for living, eating and excreting waste.

Gophers consume about 60% of their bodyweight in vegetation each day. They are strict herbivores that typically feed on the roots and fleshy parts of plants.

Favorite foods include:

• Activity: Gophers may be active during any season of the year and at any time of day. They live and forage underground and only very rarely emerge from their burrows to gather food.

• Hoarding: Gophers are prolific hoarders. When foraging, they gather food in their cheek pouches to carry down to caching chambers where they save it for later consumption.

• Reproduction: At about one year of age, gophers may begin to breed. Pocket gophers usually breed in the spring and produce a single litter of one to 10 young (typically three to four) after a gestation period of about 20 days.

• Social Interaction: Aside from the periods of time when gophers are mating or weaning young, they are solitary animals that live alone. They are also extremely territorial and will fight to the death to protect their tunnel systems and food caches from intruders.

• The lips of a gopher are adapted to close behind their four incisors, preventing dirt from entering their mouth while using their teeth to dig.

• Gophers often move backwards when traveling through their tunnels, using their short tails for navigation.

• Although gophers have poor hearing and eyesight, they have a highly developed sense of touch. A reliable survival instinct with abundant whiskers and a sensitive tail assisting them throughout their surroundings at all times.

• Gophers turn their cheek pockets inside out to clean them.