Moles and molehills

[mapper]

Moles form a network of deep tunnels that can cover hundreds of acres. While they are somewhat antisocial, when you kill one they are quickly replaced by the neighboring population. While your acre or ten may only support a few individuals you may still trap a huge amount as the replacements move in.
My next door neighbor has trapped well over a hundred over the past years and has not come close to reducing the population. I am happy if I can just keep them out of the yard and garden.

 

[texasranger556]

http://sbigelow.freeshell.org/MoleTrap/Mole.htm

 

[AxleHub]

The biggest draw for moles in our area is white grubs. And white grubs like non-sandy soils that are somewhat moist - which means lawns. We also have gophers who love rock borders and rock walls as well as the bird feeder seed droppings and "comfortable ground" (not hard pack clay or dry sand). Often you can find gophers like to use mole tunnels and then create exits from them. I tried lots of mole/gopher pellets with modest success. I tried traps with less success. And then I discovered something else. Its a smoke bomb type product designed for gopher and mole eradication.

Here's what I do - don't step on the tunnels like you know you want to do LOL. Find exits that gophers may have created and put a small wood block or flat rock over the hole. If you have slopes - even better - you put the smoke bomb product at the very lowest location and light it and the smoke works its way thru the tunnels until it either can get out of the ground or until its all consumed. Gphers and moles are both air breathers and they breath in the smoke and it kills them in place.

Now dry weather seems to drive them deeper or into surrounding woods - because like all of us they seek easy work not hard work - and dry hard ground is hard work. All you have to do is water an area over 2 days for an hour or so each of those days - and you'll notice they again come close to the surface and you can set up a smoke bombing to get them before they can reproduce again.

No - "caddy shack" doesn't work with an exhaust hose unless you only want a little benefit - because exhaust fumes are heavy not light - so they don't travel the tunnels in the same way or length. What do these smoke bombs look like ? come 4 or 5 to a pack - about 4 inches long and maybe 5/8ths inch in diameter. Then the next day after I take my scut tractor and drive the yard with a single intention - to drive over the tunnels to compress them back down and also save the lawn from getting torn up or torn out when grass cutting or air dried roots from the tunnels exposing the roots from the underside.

Works really well any time of year.

 

[Texasmark]

Seems we all have our pests. Mine are primarily Armadillos and at times Skunks, but nothing like the them. My place has an abundance of earth worms and that's their main food source. Dig holes in the sod and just make a big mess wherever they are.

 

[MossRoad]

Moles don't care if the soil is hard or soft, but their dinner does. When the soil dries out, the worms and bugs go deeper. The moles follow them down. When it moistens up, the food comes up, and the moles follow. Also, moles don't hibernate, they just go deep.

I think I read somewhere that moles have about twice the red blood cells per measure as humans, so they can get by with half the oxygen in the air as humans do. They are strong, too. It said if a mole was 6' tall, it could go into a parking lot, stand between two parked cars and shove them apart. Yikes!