[Marches Farmer]

Why do you want to catch them? If you're making hay in your fields then the soil may well become incorporated into the crop and potentially cause listeriosis but otherwise ....?  We co-exist with ours, make hay in fields they don't use and are glad that our soil is in such good heart it has high numbers of earthworms to keep the moles fed.

[juliem]

I suppose my fields are sometimes like an extension to my garden..I like everything  including hedges fences to be tidy.I have no equipment like tractor and arrows to flatten them  and they are making my pastured fields look a mess.I have 12 acres.There is also the prospect they will breed and I need to tackle the problem now.I have a lot of bare patches now....which will encourage docks..thistles in the future
I also feel as I rent out for sheep and ewes lamb our in the fields I have a responsibility to prevent that listerosis?? He had a healthy lamb drop dead the other day...wasn!t flystrike.

[Fleecewife]

We used to think "ah, mouldywarp the mole, so cute" and so he is.  But as well as Listeriosis, which can be got direct from the soil as well as from soil in baled hay, the bare earth can be a nuisance during lambing.  Ewes seem to like to lamb right on it, so the lamb is hard for her to clean and may freeze onto the soil when still wet during very low temps.   We have had a ewe cowp over a mole hill, stuck with her legs in the air.  Our neighbour ranted a bit when our moles were at their worst, that a sheep or bovine can break a leg running then catching a foot in the hole left after flattening the hill.  With a huge infestation of moles it can sometimes seem that there's more bare earth than grass.
On the other hand of course, where would be get new clean soil for our growing medium and veg beds without all that lovely soil 

[Foobar]

Why do you want to catch them?

When more than 25% of your pasture is turned to mud rather than grass you definitely want the little critters dead!   I've had a nightmare this winter with them in one particular field, where they are really really really deep and have been making mountain sizes mole hills!  Thankfully the excavations have pretty much ceased now, and I've had the dog help me flatten all the hills.  A dog that will dig on command (and stop digging!) is very handy .

[juliem]

Well my new mole catcher came out this morning (retired game keeper) and he was very helpful.We swapped traps....( I gave him the trapline trap which the previous catcher had left and he'd never seen before and he gave me a tunnel trap which he uses).He showed me how he sets them...and how to find the run.....and within ten minutes he'd caught a mole.
He's charging £10 a mole....but think it will be good investment if I l can catch them in the future.

[juliem]

another mole caught today....