moles
 

The rodent kind, not the skin type. How do you get rid of them?

I have incredibly sandy soil (think beach with grass) and have a terrible problem with moles. The problem is, I cannot find a trap that works in my sand. My record so far is 2 out of well over a hundred.

I've tried the plunger types because they are incredibly easy to set. When they go off, they jump out of the ground. Even ground the points to needles to help penetrate the b*stards and they won't stay in place when they go off. Tried splaying the legs and nothing will keep them in place.

The claw type traps they dig right through and the sand mounds up over the lever so they don't go off. Tried wetting the soil but by the time the mole goes through it's dry.

There has to be a type of trap that works in sand, right? Or do I have to dig a hole where they tunnel and replace the soil with actual dirt to help the traps work like they're supposed to?

I've had great success with Talprid worms. Poke a hole in the tunnel, drop in a worm, and walk away. No need to deal with traps or disposal as the mole becomes one with the earth.

These work great.

https://www.amazon.com/Wire-Tek-1001-EasySet-Eliminator/dp/B000SDKGC6/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1OPBU60Z3AYJ1&keywords=easy%2Bset% 2Bmole%2Btrap&qid=1652709812&sprefix=easy-set%2Bmol%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-6&th=1

I have 4 of them and when I see a maze of tunnels, I set all 4 of them, to be sure that I get an active tunnel. Never fails.

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^^^thanks for the tip! Just made an order.

light some road flares and stuff 'em in the tunnels.

I don't know why the guy in the video is tamping down all the runs before setting his trap.
Don't need to do any more than just where the trap will be set.

If anything, he's deterring them from going to the set trap.

dynamite

That's ingenious! I wish they made something like that for chipmunks. The bucket trick just doesn't work on jersey 'munks.

I duct taped a garden hose into the exhaust pipe of my old Jeep and shoved it into one of the breathing holes of their tunnel once. Let the Jeep run for half an hour and didn't have a mole problem for months after. The Jeep didn't seem to mind at all and there was no carcasses to clean up afterward.

The mole killing pellets also seems to work as well.

Sometimes you have to find what they are eating (insect wise) and kill that so they just find somewhere else to live.

Good luck.

- Steve

Yep. Traps are more economical I imagine but I'd rather sit on my deck a drink a beer thank have to empty a trap.

Or get a dachshund. One mole decided to try our back yard as a possible territory. Our male dachshund is a hunter, and it was like a personal affront to him. He was butt deep in a hole and covered in dirt before we had a chance to stop him. He was doing more damage to the yard than the mole. The mole went elsewhere, and the neighbors got to deal with the moles.

Reuben did get a bunny two nights ago. He killed it with a lot of head shaking. We had to put Reuben in the bed of the El Camino to keep him corralled and I put down some of his favorite treats. He thought about it, and finally dropped the bunny, and went for the treats. I grabbed the dead bunny and we buried it in the compost pile to be worm food.

Thanks for this info, Sarc. I've been using a repellent product which seems to work pretty good but today I saw some new activity so going to try this bait product.

Will report back. SmileWavy

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm on a farm with roaming cats and free-range chickens, ducks and geese so hesitant to use poisons and baits.

Think I'm going to try those Wire-Tek ones @stevej37 mentioned. We'll see how those work in this ridiculous sand. I'll update when I catch something. Wish me luck!

I'm about to go on a B52 bombing run on the evil critters. :D



http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1652797347.jpg

i've had pretty good sucess with moles, and some with gophers around my property by trap. but it's the dam voles that are the bane of my existence. Tried a number of repellants, mouse traps with peanut butter with a bucket over it, gopher gassers and nothing has worked. My cat hangs out at their holes and gets one from time to time so I can't poison either cause she eats them if I don't find her with one quickly enough.

have had an infestation in my lawn going on 6 months now. I think they nest under the concrete patio cause most of the tunnels come from there. so frustrating.

Poison was the only way I could get rid of voles. Oh, and stepping on them when I was mowing and saw them. I only used a little poison and it seemed to work.

I have an owl nearby now, so I keep the grass shorter and have not seen them.

Moles eat Grubs. That is why they tunnel.. looking for them.
Lay down the grub kill granules. Cover the area IAW the instructions.
After the stuff absorbs down in the dirt, the moles will leave because of no more food source and they will hit up your neighbor's grass.
It takes a month for the granules to kill the grubs but it is the only sure way to get rid of them.
Yea..... I tried everything else mentioned without long term success.
Good luck.

You can keep moles away from your lawn with store-bought household ingredients like castor oil and dish soap. Your garden will remain undamaged, and these creatures will not be harmed. They do, after all, perform a vital function in our environment!

LOL... Funniest movie ever? :)

I tried the Talprid worms and they didn't do the trick for me - I probably didn't use them correctly. So went back to the Molemax and the problem went away.....

http://mobileimages.lowes.com/produc...d/15674704.jpg

When our wiener was younger he wanted to kill, kill, kill, but at 10.5#, he had a hard time. I did catch him with a bunny cornered in our porch once with a small tuft of fur in his mouth. And he used to chase squirrels, but never caught any.

Many years ago, we had an outside cat. We lived in Japan and had moles around. The cat would frequently bring rats and birds home as gifts. We found him with a mole cornered once, but the mole, despite it's size, was holding its own, maybe because of the noise that it was making. If we'd left the cat with it for a while, I suspect he'd have killed it eventually.

Ditto on the grub kill granules. Only method that has worked for me.

Pics from 10 minutes ago.
First is the trap showing a catch. The next one is the trophy! :)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1655568789.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1655568869.jpg

I ended up buying 2 of those off Amazon. Still waiting to receive them. After buying and not getting 2 off ebay. When I finally get them delivered I'll get them set. I need to get these damn things under control. I swear they reproduce worse than rabbits.

^^^ I saw that you were concerned about sandy/light soil. The one I set and caught today was in in driveway backfill...which was all sand.
I've found that when seeing multiple criss-crossing tunnels that look as though a half dozen moles...it's usually just one. It's incredible how much damage one damn mole can do.

Good luck!

Thanks Steve! I have a 3 acre 'yard'. I know I have one along the driveway, one on the side of my house, one (or two) surrounding the garden, one behind my garage, one in front of and one behind the barn and one around a storage building. This doesn't include an entire pasture covered in tunnels. Basically everywhere except my front yard.

I've been using the out-o-sight traps in the meantime and while they go off once in awhile, they mostly just sit there while they tunnel through them because the sand isn't firm enough to set the trigger. Even if I water them in they dry out within a few hours. Having moved here from Iowa 3 years ago, it's been a challenge getting used to the ground here. Everything I've ever known fails to work here. Including how to control moles.

My experience has been that moles are episodic. Everything’s good until all of a sudden there’s molehills popping up everywhere.

Then poof! Gone. Not a trace of ‘em the next year.

Happens maybe once every decade, on average. I’ve lived here 30 years and have had 3 infestations. I think they wipe out whatever they feed on and then move on. I’ve learned to just ride it out.

^^^ when you say "molehills"..are you talking about the large cones of dirt instead of the raised tunnels that don't break the sod?

If so...those are star-nosed moles which are much harder to trap. The ones that just raise the sod up are easy to trap because they use the same route over and over.

Here's a pic of a star-nosed....(much bigger mole)
https://images.fineartamerica.com/im...skip-moody.jpg



normal eastern mole...
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VzxY1ZSdbM...0/mole4sml.jpg