Posted on 07/26/2008 7:57:16 AM PDT by djf
OK.
I had a few small like hills in my backyard where moles (moles? gophers? chinese miners?) had dug up I guess for air or whatever.
No biggie, really. Never had the problem when I had a dog, maybe getting another dog would be the ultimate solution.
But this morning I go out there and there are SIX of these large hills, with the opening very clear and visible, no doubt the little bastids did a lot of work!
While I applaud their tenacity and dexterity, enuff is enuff.
So I have this stuff called "Critter Ridder". It is a highly concentrated cayenne extract. I put about a tablespoon down in each hole, then turn on the hose. The theory being that they won't like it, if they survive the drowning, and by running the hose, it will spread the hot pepper stuff throughout the tunnels, which they should then shun, and they will all move to Thurston county or something.
Any experienced mole slayers out there? Google mentions a bunch of things, from poison baits to road flares to chewing gum. I have little doubt they will reappear in a different area, and I will wash, rinse, and repeat with the hot pepper stuff, they don't realize by moving around, it effectively allows me to treat a wider and wider amount.
FR is just about one of the largest communities of experienced people on the net, so figured I'd ask!
Gel worms...they work!!!!
moles or prairie dogs?
????????????
You mean the candy stuff?
Nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
I’ve heard that small molded figures of animals made from C4 works extremely well.
Give me some time to get the name of this product from my potting bench in the garage....
I’m near Seattle. Not prairie dogs or meercats, I guess.
If you have moles, you may have a larger problem: grubs. Put down insect control and you remove their food source.
I’ve heard that small molded figures of animals made from C4 works extremely well.
Lol! Aerates the soil real well to, I bet!
We have the same problem and tried everything. Finally we bought this mole trap and viola! WE caught 8 already this season. They’re ugly critters.
I think you can buy it online...just google mole trap...it’s yellow. and be sure not to touch it because moles have a keen smeller...use gloves.
And it will get rid of the grubs to boot.
It’s called mole eliminator
It’s called Tomcat Mole Killer and I got it at Lowes. Several other things had already been tried before this.....to no avail.
I had to monitor the runs for about 2 days before using it to make sure that I was putting it into an active run. I used a smooth wooden stick to make my entry holes into the run, being careful to use gloves so that my scent was not obvious and then inserted the gel worms carefully covering the whole with a dirt clod. I only used two of the gel worms and the next day...NO MORE new runs....and haven’t been any since.
I hope this helps. ;-)
Yikes!!
What is that thing?
Looks like some sort of spring loaded steel spike that comes down and skewers the little bugger!
Put some peppers and onions on it, fire up the barby and ya got shisk-a-mole!
I also live in western Washington. I tried everything to get rid of moles. I finally got a cat. She caught two moles just this week.
Hook up the 240D exhaust pipe to something flexible, put the other end down the gopher hole. Let the MB 240D or equivalent idle for about half an hour, or until you are really bored.
Have a cup of coffee or two. Soon, the little furry terrorists will be enjoying their version of the 72 virgins. repeat as needed.
But with that thing you don’t get to SEE the little dead critter. I like to SEE that it works...
When I was a yute working on the farm we had this stuff we used for woodchucks. Came in large cans, it was a powder.
Put about two tablespoons down the hole, and shovel it over. Voila! No more woodchuck!
Don’t know if you can still get it. Active ingredient was potassium cyanide.
Sardines........yep, a can of sardines. You open the can of sardines just a little, enough to allow the odor of the fish to escape, insert these cans into the tunnels, the moles will move to another area...fast. This is a cheap way to rid your area of moles.
The “trap and kill” moles from hardware stores is really the only way to get rid of them for sure.
Dish soap! Yeah, that’s probably a good one. Soap kills bugs, and I doubt the moles would want to get soap in their little mole eyeballs!
Hills like that say they are not moles. Around here they would be gophers.
OK, you say you’re near Seattle. To me, you could have one of three pests: voles, moles and pocket gophers.
Can you post a pic of what an undisturbed mound/hole looks like? If you can, I could tell you with pretty high certainty what you’re dealing with.
As for getting rid of them: the peppers, the stink bombs, smoke bombs, etc — all are nearly worthless. I guess I should qualify that statement: I used to be a hay farmer. It was one of our many chores every year to kill thousands of meadow voles and hundreds of pocket gophers. We didn’t have moles in our fields — not really their area.
Trapping works, but if you’re not experienced in setting a trap, telling you to use a trap might just be wasting your time.
Fumigation works, but only if you use the right fumigant, and the right fumigants are restricted products and I’m guessing you don’t have an applicator’s license and don’t want to invest 20 hours in getting one.
So we’re down to poisons. Strychnine is highly effective, but has a bad secondary kill rate, so it has been restricted in many states. If you can get it in your state, strych bait works and works well. Just be sure to pick up any bodies you see above ground and toss them in the trash immediately. Don’t allow raptors, cats or dogs to get hold of a strych-poisoned carcass. The efficacy of strych is highest on raptors and canines, so this is part of why the secondary kill rate is so high. If moles were the size of housedogs, you couldn’t force-feed enough strych into them to get a LD50.
Next bait/poison options: my personal favorite, zinc phosphide baits. Zinc phosphide baits have a very low to non-existent secondary kill rate, because of the way ZP baits work. The ZP, when in contact with moisture, causes phosgene gas to form; in a target animal, this happens in their gut. Once the reaction is complete, all the gas is in the gut. If the gut pouch is punctured (as it would be when a scavenger is eating the carcass), the gas escapes. The poison has run its course on the first consumption.
There are ZP dusts and ZP baits - groated oats and whole oats. I’d dig my way into one of the tunnels, put down a bit of old newspaper and then put the bait on top. A mole would have to consume about a teaspoon worth of bait for a sure-fired kill.
There are ZP and aluminum phosphide fumigant tablets for gassing burrowing rodents in their holes, but these are almost always restricted use products. They work well and have absolutely no secondary kill issues; these were my favorite products for large-scale use on voles, gophers and ground squirrels. I could just toss a couple/three tables into a hole, squirt on some water to activate the gas and move on to the next hole.
However, phosgene is a highly toxic gas, phosgene poisoning has no antidote, so it is a restricted product. For all that, I considered the storage issues to be more problematic than the usage issues. In use (ie, in the field), I thought that “Phos-Toxin” (a brand name) tablets were the safest rodent control (after direct trapping) that I could perform.
Last bait option: anti-coagulants. I really dislike these, because they have an even higher secondary kill than strych, especially on cats.
So why are they still available to homeowners without a pesticide license and strych is outlawed? Dog wars. Killing a neighbor’s offending dog with strych is a classic neighbor-on-neighbor retaliation, and strych is a horrible way to kill a dog. Most anti-coag’s LD50’s are based almost completely on body mass - the bigger the animal, the higher the LD50, whereas strych is MUCH more effective on raptors and canids than on varmints (ie, the LD50 per kg of body mass is substantially lower in raptors and canids), so there is some added safety in anti-coags, when used appropriately.
Most homeowners, however, believe in “more is always better,” so that theory doesn’t work in actual practice.
We used to have one of those units. They work... in particular applications.
Where you have ground squirrels, you must be very aware of fire dangers from stored grasses and seeds coming flying out of squirrel holes on fire at a possible distance well away from where you’re putting down the gas and explosion.
We sold ours. Ground squirrels in Nevada like to pack cheat seed down into holes. Very flammable. I got tired of having to throw down the Rodentator, grab a shovel, run 50 yards and put out the various fires started by flaming grass/seed being ejected from a hole I couldn’t see.
Oh, man, I gotta get me one them rodenators!
Me too, but only if you put one near every exit...
Moles may eat two grubs to every dozen earthworms. If you have good soil they come for the banquet. I’ve dug them up by turning a hose down the hole and then digging them up with a shovel. Poison worms might be easier.
I had to dig an 10 to 18 inch deep(all the way down to the hardpan) trench around my [4 foot diameter] flower garden to keep the buggers out.
The other day, one accidentally burrowed into the trench and got stuck.
Anyway, I found him shortly after he fell into the trench and was able to get my air rifle and pop ‘im before he found a way out.
Not a very practical way to keep em out of your yard though...
here in iowa dirt mounds mean gophers and they are a bitch to get rid of.
Well, they haven’t made a reappearance yet..
Tomorrow morning will probably tell.
The milky spore (grub killing parasite) helped -- but it is applied in the spring and takes two years to be effective. Still, mole activity has been much less in the years since the one application.
But I came to develop an 100% effective strategy against moles once the mole trails are noticed. I rent a lawn roller, and have at least two spring-loaded mole traps. Go out in the daytime, roll the trails flat. Then wait. Don't use the mole afflicted area while waiting. You can go away for a few hours and come back.
Moles are active during the day. They can be still when you are walking or running around -- they are extremely sensitive to vibrations. But once you roll flat the mole trails in a couple of hours you will see where the mole is active -- the mole will re-hill the trail or dig a new one. Set the traps on either side of the active length of the trail, and in a few minutes -- not too long - >sprung< ! Another mole dead and already buried. Very convenient. No poison. The spikes on the trap will show mole blood if you got him.
Roll again -- often it's a group of moles. Make sure there is no more activity. You should be able to get them all in an afternoon.
Cats and small terriers will also happily engage moles -- but they leave more of a mess.
Well, lemme see what I got after a day or two.
The traps might be the answer, but I’ll tell ya what, from the looks of that contraption, I definitely wouldn’t want a girlfriend to get ahold of it! Especially a mad girlfriend!
;-)
I do know that one time we had some moles and at the same times had a few trees cut down. The stump grinder created such strong vibrations it seems to have driven all teh moles away -- at least for a few weeks.
So maybe those sonic/vibrating mole repellers might work -- I haven't tried them because in my sandy soil I did not think the range would be much.
I have had moles in my front yard for 4 years now.
I have tried everything at Lowe’s and Home Depot: poisons you put in the tunnels, traps, stuff you spray on the lawn to repel them, stuff you spray on the lawn to kill the grubs that moles eat — nothing worked. Every summer they ravage part of my lawn.
This year, I decided to call an exterminator and pay whatever I needed to to finally be rid of them. I paid him $195. He brought out some traps and left them for a month. He got one mole.
A few weeks later, I had a freaking mole megalopolis under my yard. They are as bad as ever. I wrote the exterminator and let him know his services were a waste of my money. He wrote back and told me to spray for grubs. Yeah. Thanks a lot.
In the war against moles, I am France and the moles are Germany.
I used castor beans to exterminate the underground critters. They haven’t returned. That’s all I know.
All you really need is a young Jack Russel Terrier.
I got hills in my yard, not rocks in my head!
My neighbors have two.
They yap incessantly.
Between the mutts and the moles, I’ll keep the moles!
Borrow ‘em!
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