Flail Mower Using a flail to run over mole hills

[biffo]

Have used my flail for the first time in the last few days and have had to run over maybe 50-70 mole hills, some of them are pretty high (for mole hills) at about 8-10".

I checked over the mower before using it yesterday and noticed that the flails had cut deep grooves into the soil that has stuck to the under side of the rotor box. I cleaned the box out and saw the soil was about 1/14 - 1/1/2" thick. It occurred to me that the resistance for the flails to pass through this soil must be immense and can't do the knives or rotor bearings too much good. Also consumes power from the tractor too.

Is this a common problem when using a flail and does it matter? Am I making too much of this?

Later I drove over some newly formed slopes, the flail just scalped them (same soil) a few times with each run, but didn't leave any soil attached to the underside. Following that I ran over maybe another 10 mole hills and sure enough the underside had 1/2" of soil stuck to it!

Any opinions out there?

Thanks

 

[IslandTractor]

Other than speed there is not a lot of difference between a flail mower and a tiller. I'd guess that your knives will wear out a bit sooner but I cannot imagine any serious damage to a flail from "tilling" mole hills compared to cutting 1 inch brush. In both cases the flail knife would likely pivot back and be dragged through the material. Again, I believe they are basically designed to do that so I don't see what the damage would be. I presume the dirt that is adherent to the inside will dry out and fall out with further mowing so I would personally not even bother cleaning it out.

 

[Frankm]

moles how do we get them to leave ? i have tons of them , i have put tons a lime on the yard , but still have thwem , ???????? Thanks Frank, corvette@velocity.net , Drop me a line , Thanks !

 

[LBrown59]

I just plain em off back draging with the FEL bucket.

 

[MarkLeininger]

Moles are useful creatures, they eat grubs and insects that damage roots of grass and trees, aerate the soil, mix the soil layers, help soil retain more water. They do eat a lot of worms, so if you're a fisherman this probably isn't so good. Moles are carniverous so they don't eat vegetation deliberatly, but they can damage it when they dig around root system looking for bugs. Their tunnels and mounds do look unsightly, but you might have more problems with plants dying if the moles weren't around. Maybe you could pull a roller a few times and knock down the tunnels and hills. Moles won't mind and the flail mower might have clearance. I had them for years in a house I owned, but eventually they moved on somewhere else, I guess the food supply was exhausted.

 

[whistlepig]

I use a 1,000 pound lawn roller to squish them in the yard. I use (4) 1,000 pound horses to squish them in the pastures. Expensive but does seem to work.
Moles don't like to be squished.