Think I'm going to have a huge mole problem this year-- used to be that I would only notice a small amount of damage to my yard due to moles, but late in the summer last year I was getting a lot of damage!!! Was hoping that winter would thin them out, but so far it doesnt seem to be the case!! Also, used to find a dead one in the yard once in a while that the dog killed---dont remember finding any last year,,, think maybe the dog has lost interest in catching them... Does anybody have some effective solutions??? keep in mind that I have a cat and a dog around and dont want to poison them if possible!!! I'm looking for real solutions that you have done or know firsthand to work...... Thanx

 

i have a golden retriever that every now and then goes into point and always comes back dropping a mole at my feet. don't see to many around here. northern tools has some battery powered thing you stick in the ground that seem to help also.

 

The problem is that in the lawn and planting beds there are lots of food for them. Moles primary food source is white grubs. As you stated late in the summer you got lots of damage. That is the time of year where the grubs are in thier third instar of growth. They will overwinter in the third instar and in the spring pupate into a adult beetle depending on the specie around june- early august. Then they lay eggs and the cycle starts all over again. The first thing you should do to control mole populations is control thier food. Now the smaller the grub the easier it is to kill. This comming spring will be tough. The perfect control is just after egglaying and when they hatch as first instar grubs. Then is when you treat. Scotts GrubEX works great and has long residual control of about 6 weeks. Spring applications can be made with a organophosphate which is not availible to the home owner. Must be made by a licensed applicator like and good lawn care company. In the mean time I have used with success a trap. This take some time a patients. The trap I am talking about is the one with six spring loaded spikes that you set over a MAIN travel tunnel. How do you find the main travel tunnel. LIGHTLY press down a few seperate tunnels and see the next day which one was retunneled. These are the two way to control moles. Some crazy things that you see out there like caster oil, smike bombs, and poison food nuggets dont work and some like the smoke bomb is very toxix to you as well. IF you follow the chemical treatment I mentioned and contact you local state university extention service to help you with the exact specie of grub and exact timing of application for treatment.

No I am not a entomologist.
Class of 97' University of Massachusetts
Degree in Plant and Soil Sciences (turfgrass management)
Superintendent of a Country Club in Massachusetts

GOOD LUCK

 

I just had a pest control guy tell me to put juicy fruit gum in their tunnels. I guess it binds 'em up or something. Sounds crazy to me, but the investment is small. I might try it on the ones I've got right now.

 

Boxcar1974 hit it right on.
You need to reduce their food supply by killing the grubs. However, they will also eat earthworms and you don't want to kill them as they are extremely beneficial to the soil and the condition of your yard. (Grub-ex doesn't kill worms, I think, but other pesticides may)
Secondly, you have to kill as many as you can. The trap method is the only effective way to do this. All that other stuff is snake oil and nowhere near as effective as painstakenly and methodically killing the buggers. The electronic things are a waste of money-I fell for it-so learn from my mistake.
The hardest part about trapping is finding the established travel tunnels, not the one-time feeding tunnels. The travel tunnels tend to be a little straighter and longer. The problem I had was that there were so many tunnels, I couldn't tell which I had pushed down and which were new ones. So I took some survey flags and stuck them along side what I thought were travel tunnels to mark where they were, then pushed them down. If a tunnel reappeared along the flags, I knew it was a travel tunnel and set a trap on it. The traps are very effective but you have to put them on the frequently used runs.
I had done extensive research on the subject when the "quick" fixes did not work and this system is far and away the most effective.
Some research indicated also that if your neighbors have moles they will move to your yard for food eventually. Grub control will help prevent this especially if you can talk your neighbor into letting you apply the pesticides about 10 feet into his yard. Another option, albeit expensive and time consuming is to trench around your property and fill the trench with packed gravel. This will turn the moles away from your property and keep them from re-entering.
We live in a rural area and have a very long yard since purchasing a little bit of additional land. After killing the moles in the part of the yard we use for recreation and treating for grubs in that portion of the yard, I let the very farthest part of the yard go. The moles live back there and have not progreessed significantly towards the groomed portion of our yard in the last 3 years.

 

Juicy fruit gum is a myth.

Electric/vibrating sticks don't work, except in perhaps the PERFECT soil.

Jack Russell terriers are pretty good.

A castor oil solution, sprayed on the ground and watered in, has worked for me in small areas. Theory is that it coats anything they like to eat and gives 'em a tummy ache. my moles still operate around the sprayed area, but not in it.

Traps are always best IMO, for moles or gophers, because you get postive feedback...a real, dead mole.

You can find recipes for the castor oil solution on the web, or there are similar store products which you simply attach to your hose and spray, should cover at least 3000 sq feet if I recall correctly. Lasts for over a month.

Thanks for reminding me...I need to go spray before things get t warm.

 

My brother in law (who has a perfect lawn, and I mean perfect) uses empty open plastic pop bottles buried in the ground. (1 ltr diet Moutian Dew Bottles) Wind blowing over the top of the bottle makes the HOOOOt! sound (like we used to do as kids by blowing on one). They don't seem to like the noise. He has to dig them up occassionally to get the water out of them. He has them all along the fence line about 6-8 ft or so apart. It's cheap! and seems to work.

 

My Mom used to tell me that stuff was good for me!

My tender-hearted brother set one of those spear-type traps for moles. It tripped; he pulled it up and saw blood on it and never set it again.

Brady

 

I'm on about an acre of what apparently is prime mole territory. I've tried all kinds of stuff but the one that works for me is the Nash Mole Trap


http://www.nwtrappers.com/catalog/tr...ODUCT_ID=NCLMT

Available at most good hardware or farm stores they are simple, effective, and most gratifying!! when you see that it has tripped! Unlike the "jumping spear" thing it seldom misses. Since moles migrating into an area (usually from the neighbors infested yard) discover and use existing tunnels I have one or two I leave these traps in when activity is high.

I have three and wouldn't be without them.

I love DEAD moles!!!

Roger

 

Yeah, I have had mole problems in the past. You need to be careful as you can get obsessed with the little varmints REAL quick! I did find that often I had a lot of damage over a wide area, but once I managed to trap one or two moles, the damage would completely stop.

I think each individual mole covers a large territory and if you trap one the damage usually goes way down. I know my yard looked like I had 30 or 40 running around every night. But.. I got one and the damage went down. I found a fresh tunnel and after a week of trying every day, I got another. The problem stopped for the year.

Now don't get me started on pocket gophers! For me at least, they are harder to trap and new ones move in when you do get one. A good cat seems to work best on the gophers.

 

Boxcar1974 : Very informative sport : I do not have a mole problem at present but I try to still learn something new each day and your post here is what I will file for today. If i ever do run into the pesky things you've educated me in advance .

 

my parents used to have a lab/sheppard mix that would heard the horses. Well she also would point at moles. when she came back to the house with a dirty nose she had dug up a mole. She would point, dig them up, snap their necks and then leave the dead bodies laying next to the trash can. Some times 2 or 3 early in the morning. So we had to put them in the garbage. But she beat us sometimes on trash days and the garbage truck would get a suprise at 6 a.m.

One of the best dogs i ever knew

Oh for small areas my friends grandpa always has us pump kerosene in those holes and then light it with a torch.

Nothing and I mean Nothing makes a kid so happy while mole hunting than to see a bunch of flaming Moles running around.
A little inhumane as some would say but it works.

 

Yeah, my neighbors cats are good...but trapping for gophers is best, for me. I use Mcabee traps. They are the best!

Follow the directions for using two in a main tunnel, or one in a feed tunnel. But before you handle them: semi crush a piece of green leaf lettuce and rub your hands with the juice, then rub the traps with it. Set the traps, then put the rest of the lettuce in the hole between them.

It's good bait and it covers your scent. My success rate skyrocketed after using the lettuce. I even caught a couple huge old timers who had eluded me for two years! Last year between about April and July, I caught 12 of the buggers.

Oh yeah, and the traps aren't necessarily obvious to set up. Have someone in the store show you how to set them, or email me.

 

Back when I lived in an area with the mole problem, I found good results by:

*Scissor type mole traps. You need to know how to properly set them for maximum effectiveness.

*Use diazinon (or whatever poor quality substitute they now sell) on the grass to reduce the population of grubs and other things moles like to eat. Downside is that earthworm population may suffer.

*Used engine oil gets dumped in mole tunnels with greatest activity. Again, this kills insects that moles like to eat.

 

I was always skeptical of those electronic pulse units and feel they are a waste of money. The flaming mole solution sounds pretty cool, but I guess I will go with the traps and spraying for grubs- not the easy solution I was looking for but at least it wont be a total waste of my time!!! I really dont mind the damage the dog did to the yard to catch one as it wasnt any worse than what the mole would do! keep the ideas coming please!!!