Prairie dogs next to your yard: Texas rules, plague risk and your options

Black-tailed prairie dogs are native to the Panhandle grasslands. They live in colonies, often called towns, made up of family groups that share a network of burrows. A town needs open, short-grass ground with good visibility, which describes a lot of empty lots, pasture edges, drainage strips and undeveloped land next to new subdivisions on the south and southwest sides of Amarillo.

Towns grow outward. Young prairie dogs come above ground in late spring, and as the colony expands, new burrows show up along its edges. If your backyard has mowed grass, a chain-link fence and open ground on the other side, the edge of the town may move right up to it. Mounds under a fence line, holes in a horse pasture and clipped grass around a garden are the usual first complaints.

Beyond the holes, the concerns are real. Burrows are an ankle hazard for people and a leg hazard for horses and livestock. The animals clip vegetation down to bare soil. And prairie dogs carry fleas that matter for plague, which is the most important reason to treat a nearby town with care.

Plague is endemic in the Panhandle, and prairie dogs are the main regional reservoir. The disease is spread by fleas, and when it moves through a colony it can kill most of the animals quickly. People and pets are at risk mostly from fleas that leave dead or dying prairie dogs looking for a new host.

One sign of a die-off is spider webs stretched across burrow entrances. In an active town, prairie dogs pass through their holes all day and webs never last. If you notice webs over many burrows, few animals moving and an unusual quiet in a town that used to be busy, treat it as a warning. Keep children and pets out of the area, don't handle any dead prairie dog, and let your city or county office know what you've seen.

Dogs and outdoor cats that roam into a colony can pick up fleas there. Keeping pets on a regular flea preventive and on a leash near the town is simple insurance.

The right choice depends on whose land the colony is on, how close it is and whether owls are present. Common approaches include:

• Barrier fencing along your property line, with mesh buried and bent outward at the base so animals can't dig under it.
• Visual barriers such as solid fencing or tall plantings, since prairie dogs avoid places where they can't see predators coming.
• Letting the grass on your side grow taller near the fence, which makes the ground less attractive for expansion.
• Filling and packing burrows on your property once they're confirmed empty and no owls are using them.
• Trapping or burrow treatments on your own land, following product labels and only after an owl survey.
• Talking with the neighbor or the city about the source colony, because control on one side of a fence rarely lasts.

Our technician walks the property and the colony edge, maps active and inactive burrows on your side, and surveys for burrowing owls before anything else. They'll look for signs of a die-off as well, because that changes what's safe to do and how close people should get.

From there, we explain the options that fit your land and the law: barrier work, filling confirmed-empty burrows, trapping, or a treatment plan that follows the label and avoids owls and other animals. We also point out what will keep the colony from moving back in. If prairie dogs have reached your fence, call (806) 552-3060; we answer 24/7.