The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Gardens => Topic started by: Workhorse on April 09, 2013, 11:50:29 am
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Over the last few years there seems to be more moles than ever before!! Now i dont like to kill anything in the garden but this is now beyond a joke, apart from the fact they are undermining the garden and the field, the dog has a "thing " about them and is trying to dig them up!!!! BIG holes everywhere :rant:
So how do you deal with them??
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You can end up with more molehill than grass eventually :o When our whole smallholding looked like it had a very bad attack of acne, a local gamekeeper offered to trap them for us - at a price of course, but it was worth it.
You can't really catch them and rehome them, partly as you would just be transferring the problem to someone else and you would just get plenty of new ones moving in, especially if you are chemical-free so there are loads of worms for them. Also I think that being caught and moved elsewhere would be extremely stressful for the animal itself, so better just to kill them straight off. It might salve your conscience to rehome them, but you wouldn't be doing them any favours.
Ours see this place as a mole sanctuary so the numbers don't stay low for long and gradually they creep back up. Our gamekeeper friend only finds it worthwhile if there are loads of moles (has to visit each trap at least once a day until they are all gone), and at the moment we wouldn't want traps in our lamb fields. We are using all the spoil soil though to make our own seedling and growing composts, and filling our new rock garden with a soil/grit mix (a lot of moles :D )
We did have a dog (Anatolian Karabash x Irish Wolfhound) who would spend hours standing over an active molehill waiting for Mouldy Warp The Mole to stick his head out, then she would pounce like a Polar bear. She caught quite a few, but as you say digging them out, when she went for that option, made one heck of a mess, especially as she would follow the runs all over the fields. Our current dogs don't have the patience.
I think there is someone on TAS who is a molecatcher so you will get advice soon.
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One of the many things on my list at the moment too! Neighbour swears by peanut butter mixed with paracaetamol poked down the runs- but aside from not wishing to bury drugs in our fields (who knows how much gets into the grass?), I dont think it works! We are on the lookout for a local trapper - they have gone balistic since the snow has melted.
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Alfie (dog) stands for ages with his nose millimetres from a mound, then dives onto it, he MAY have caught one in all the time i have had him!
I say i dont like to kill things, but the time, i think has come!!
We also work for an estate who are having big problems.
I
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They're pretty bad here too :P Mind you, there are small holes, and molehills from the mowlies, and there are enormous craters and spoil heaps from the dogs digging to catch the mowlies ::)
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On the bright side... mole hills generally makes some of teh best soild for potting plants in.
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We can all thank the taking away of the stricnean for mixing with worms , why the moles numbers are on the up,break back traps are all that is left and is a very time consuming way to go . I have heard if you dont want to kill them , that a few drips of old engine oil in the run will move them on but this depends on how much you get on with your neighbors .
The only other option is sell up and move to Ireland , Isle of White or Isle of Man as there is no moles there :roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim:
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This might come back to haunt me but I used to earn a fair portion of my living catching moles. Making the holes stink of whatever, simply encourages them to dig more tunnels. :innocent:
Right here goes. Here are the pictures, The traps that I use are known as tunnel traps. There are another type known as pincer traps but I prefer these.
I've actually set two traps today and I hope that if I run the pictures in the correct sequence, that you should get a good idea as to how to set them.
The tricky bit can be actually locating the moles hole or run. You don't want to set your trap to close to the mole hill or you may find that the mole accidentaly sets the mole trap off by shoveling soil into it. For this reason, I always try and set my traps a fair way off from the hill. The mole hills are actually made from the soil that the little critter has dug out in constructing its tunnels.
Sometimes as you are walking on the grass, you will actually feel the ground give just a fraction as you take a pace and this is a sure sign that you have trodden on top of the mole tunnel. Otherwise I use a metal rod to thrust into the ground in likely spots and once again you will feel the rod 'give' as it breaks into the tunnel.
See if you can follow these photos, as I first of all set the trap and then position it into the run.
The trap before its been set.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3399.jpg)
Setting the trap, this is where you have to watch your fingers.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3400.jpg)
You get two chances with this kind of trap. I've already set one of the mechanisms and I'm still to set the other one.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3403.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3404.jpg)
Both ends set
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3401.jpg)
I've located the hole and cut a piece of turf out, now I've got to carefully place the trap at the bottom of the run so that 'old Moley' unsuspectingly trundles along the hole and sticks his head into the trap.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3407.jpg)
The trap fits snuggly into the hole that I've cut out.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3408.jpg)
Then its pushed to the bottom of the run, so that the mole comes straight along it run from either direction and doessn't find any difference in the tunnel where the trap is set.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3408.jpg)
Then using the fine soil from one of the molehills, I cover the trap and exclude all the light.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3410.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3411.jpg)
Just to recap, heres the sequence of events as I set a second trap.
The set trap.
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3413.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3414.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3415.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3416.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3417.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3418.jpg)
(http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m180/kcooper2006/DSCF3419.jpg)
If you are lucky, you may catch the mole in a very short time but I wont be checking these traps until tomorrow. The mole lives on a four hour cycle and every four hours or so, it will do a whistle stop tour of its run system to check for juicy worms that may have fallen into the tunnels.
This sort of trap kills instantly by crushing the mole around the head or thorax with a steel band. The trigger mechanism is identical to that of a break back mouse trap. The mole trigger the trap by setting it off with its nose.
Fingers crossed and hopefully there will be a mole in the trap in the morning.
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Thank you Over The Gate - what a clear set of pics. We keep meaning to set our own traps, which we've had for ages, so once the lambs are grown a bit we'll give it a go.
Two questions - our gamekeeper always wears a pair of rubber gloves with which he has handled soil and rubs the trap in soil when it's new, to prevent the mole from smelling human and so avoiding the trap; He also marks each trap with a little flag on a stick so he can find it next day (although lambs and terriers tend to take them away to play with :excited: ) Are these worth doing?
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I'm off on a mole gassing course in northallerton this Friday to try and sort out my mole infestation. I've tried the traps but I've just caught my fingers too many times. The cats got a few recently and I know it's going to upset my wife but they need to go.
Anyone else had experience with talunex?
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I've used Phostoxin to gas moles. Its useful stuff, just as long as you can get the tablets down in the really deep runs and not the surface ones, it does the job. Gassing doesn't work very well if you have sandy soil. and that, is because the gas leaches out into the surrounding soil before it completely fills the entire system. By gassing I refer to the use of Phostoxin. It comes in tablet form and it reacts with the moisture in the soil and gives off phostoxin, which is a lethal non persistant poisonous gas. It says so in the instructions but you must for obvious reasons never use this stuff in wet weather.
Flags are a very good idea but I never bothered to use gloves. I didn't mind getting my hands dirty and I reckoned that if I could smell the rubbery smell that comes with some gloves, then a mole definately could.
I used to use strickneen to control moles on farmers fields and it was the one part of my small pest control business that I hated. It was truly the stuff that nightmares are made of. It makes me shudder right now just thinking about it.
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I know they make a mess of a manicured lawn and can be a trip hazard for horses but what harm do moles really do? Don't they improve drainage?
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Moles obviously bring soil to the surface and in that soil, there's an organism called Listeria which can cause a particularly nasty disease in cattle and other livestock. The soil and the listeria is swept up with the grass when its turned into silage and farm animals can go blind and eventually die when they consume the infected feed. I once visited the Longhorns and at Raby Castle and and they had sme cases of it then and its not nice way to go.
Mole hills can also damage certain farm machinery and if you get a heavy infestation, then area that actually has grass growing on it your fields can be drastically reduced.
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I hear phostoxin can work with rabbits. Anyone ever used for this purpose?
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The railways use it big time on their embankments.
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I assume it isn't generally available to people such as myself with a couple of acres and too many rabbits to cope with ?
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I assume it isn't generally available to people such as myself with a couple of acres and too many rabbits to cope with ?
Have you thought about letting the air gun community having a go on it? Make sure they're insured with BASC or whatever and let them bring the numbers down... Plenty of youths out there who'd love to go lamping in the cold
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Wow thanks for all the replies and to over the gate for his? step by step photo guide!! :)
Big news on the mole front , it seems that patience pays off in the end, i found a rather large and rather dead mole in the garden today, dispatched by one of the dogs...or maybe the cat!
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Owls catch quite a few moles and then tend not to eat them. There are quite a few animals that wont eat them and thats why you find them left lying about.
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Owls catch quite a few moles and then tend not to eat them. There are quite a few animals that wont eat them and thats why you find them left lying about.
Could be owls, but my money is on the dog, it was right in the spot in the garden that he has been digging and staring at!