Moles, Moles Moles???

[Lake Lady 6]

Now that some of the snow on our lawn has melted we see several long trails/tracks from mole(s). Put preventative down last fall too. Question is what do we do next, tamp down the evident trail which just looks muddy at this point, put down more preventative, etc. Not much chance of trapping the little varmint. Anybody else have this experience?

[SAMIAM]

Same on our lawn....little mole highways running everywhere.Every now and then the cat will catch one but would like to find a way to get rid of them since the ridges are high enough to be scalped by the lawnmower.Any exterminators out there?

[twoplustwo]

My lawn is the same way - riddled with mole tracks. A local garden supply place once suggested I put a stick of Juicy Fruit in with my plantings to keep the moles away. As far as I can tell, the little buggers were blowing bubbles and chewing away at both the gum and my bulbs.:(

[steadyon]

same here!
fortunately, my dog hunts them. In fact I have considered a little side job
with Casey dog!
a sniff, then a tilt of the head, then a swipe with the paw and there the little bugger is and off to mole heaven!
I think they are exceptionally bad this year.

[Argie's Wife]

We also have evidence of little highways and byways just under the snow. The good thing about moles is that they eat grubs... I figure they're pretty low on the food chain and will let nature take care of them.... (Maybe that's why I've got an otter in my back yard lately...)

[Rose]

In our lawn, the tracks have primarily been caused by voles, a mouse-like creature. Not sure if the treatment for voles is the same as for moles, so you may want to treat for both. My husband has successfully disposed of voles with mousetraps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole

[dpg]

[QUOTE=twoplustwo;67503]My lawn is the same way - riddled with mole tracks. A local garden supply place once suggested I put a stick of Juicy Fruit in with my plantings to keep the moles away. As far as I can tell, the little buggers were blowing bubbles and chewing away at both the gum and my bulbs.:([/QUO


what's meant by the gum is probably to kill them when they eat it. A person one time spraying my lawn a way to kill off skunks is to put out Bubble Yum (bubble gum) they eat it and it kills the skunks. Apparently they cannot digest the stuff and it "clogs" up their insides.:(

He told me not to tell anyone cause he's not supposed to tell his customers that. oops...:D:D

[fpartri497]

:( my entire lawn has been destroyed by moles this year here In concord. i might as well rototill it under and start over. this Is the worst year I have ever seen for moles.

:eek:

[Lakepilot]

Our lawn has tons of tracks too. Last year I bought some stuff at Bradleys. I think they liked it. There's definitely more of them this year.

[Merrymeeting]

It's just natures way of telling you that lawns don't belong at the lake :D

Seriously, if you have mole problems, it's an indication that there is a good food source there. Get rid of the food source, and the mole problem will lessen too.

[Rattlesnake Guy]

I believe the food source is grubs. You can usually get moles and other grass destroyers to move to another part of your yard or better yet your neighbors yard by treating the grubs. I have had some luck moving them around the yard for many years.:emb:

[chipj29]

My next door neighbors yard was destroyed by moles. My yard...not one bit of damage. I wonder if the 3 dogs and 2 cats patrolling my yard have anything to do with that? :D

[SIKSUKR]

Same here but they are vols and I bet most people here have vols and not moles.This is the first year my Dad didn't have any damage and his lawn was treated for grubs last fall.It seemed to work.My lawn on the other hand looks like a giant ant farm.

[MAXUM]

We've had the same problem, those little varmints can really do some serious damage. Trouble is how to get rid of them when you're married to an animal lover?

Well my dear wife tried out a sonic thumper, it's a spike you bury in the ground right to grass level. I was of course very skeptical of such a device, but no kidding they do work and the good thing is it keeps chipmunks away as well. We got ours at Agway and they have a pretty good effective range too. I think they cost about 30 bucks or so per thumper. 4 of them keep them out of my yard which is 40K square feet.

[djwoodward]

I have the same problem this year and have never had it before. My entire lawn is riddled. A neighbor mentioned that he has seen it more this year all around the region.

I was wondering if there was any connection to the heavy snowfall. Is it possible the ground didn't freeze as deeply because the snow acted as an insulator causing a boom for vols? Probably a far fetched coindidence but it had me wondering.

[MJM]

I can speak from experience, the only way to rid yourself of the voles/moles is to remove their reason for being there....grubs.

For years I tried treating the lawn, the sonic stakes, etc. All seemed to have some effect, but never completely eliminated the critters.

Then I started having the lawn treated for grubs 4 or 5 yrs ago.

Never had another sign of them.

[GWC...]

Moles and Vols (http://antecopest.com/_wsn/page11.html)...

the lesser of two evils...

the other being the Japanese beetles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_beetle) and their larva - grubs (http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf46707195.tip.html), that like to eat the roots of your plants and grass. :eek:

[Merrymeeting]

For those battling grubs near the lake, please follow any label instrutions. This caution is included on most common forms of grub control,
Also caution should be taken near water. This pesticide is highly toxic to aquatic invertebrates.

[donnamatrix]

There is a reason that there are few lush lawns in NH, unless they are being installed by landscapers: the soil doesn't support a lush lawn without using a bunch of pesticides and growth products to keep it lush and green. All this stuff goes into the lakes, so we have algae blooms and many other consequences. I hate seeing lawns rolling down the the lake from homes along the waterfront... it's not natural, it's not healthy.

[twoplustwo]

I have 2 dogs and 5 cats, and tons and tons of tracks out there. I think my animals are slackers.:(

[hilltopper]

We had it fairly bad last year in a couple of areas of the lawn. I tried the pellets without much luck. The melting snow finally revealed some lawn and it looks like this year will be no different. Will they feed on tree roots (not sure whether I'm dealing with voles or moles)? I really don't want to lose the apple tree. As said in the thread, the next plan of attack is to eliminate the feed.

http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i74/hilltopper1993/April%2014%202008%20Snow%20and%20Moles/IMG_1951.jpg


http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i74/hilltopper1993/April%2014%202008%20Snow%20and%20Moles/IMG_1952.jpg

[NavGirl316]

We had moles last year and tried many different avenues to get rid of them, all to no avail....until someone recommended some sort of 'rubber worms' (I can't remember the exact name of the product right now) - we picked up a bag at Lowes and that immediately did the trick!

[VADET]

My dog dug some nice trenches around my yard attempting to find the moles without much luck. There are all kinds of products on the market to get rid of moles, both humane traps and other types. Grub control has been working for me so far. I have also heard that in places like golf courses they use rollers to flatten out the mole dens. Happy Hunting...

[Gearhead]

I've got an idea:

I'm going to find one, put peanut butter and bird seed on it's back and release it into the wild. As soon as the chipmunks and the red squirrels discover how yummy they are, they'll go looking for more.

Of course my lawn will be all dug up from the other varmints, so I'll have to catch a squirrel and put honey on it to attract a bear.:rolleye2:

[Chickie]

The moles have invaded my lawn, as well, and if that isn't bad enough, a family of red squirrels took up residence in my garden shed and spent the winter. They are very aggressive little devils and chased the gray squirrels away in short order. I am hoping that the stray cat I took in recently will reward me by chasing them off the property. Guess that will have to wait a while, however, as she presented me with three kittens today and is rather exhausted at the moment.

[SteveA]

The biggest hunter of "voles,moles" are owls.

Interesting article.. maybe all the snow has had an effect on the moles,voles population. ??

http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=f0f467b4-196d-419f-9425-e618ecc22d81&headline=Lack+of+prey+threatens+NH's+owls

[Steve]

I caught a mole at my old house. I tampered down the ridge with my foot, and waited. They are persistent and want to keep the ridge/tunnel open. Once he got moving on opening up the tunnel again, I just watched the ridge as it raised, and timed it (not difficult) right to catch him, by jamming a spade shovel into the exact spot he was working on. Got him good, and that was the end of that.

[chipj29]

I caught a mole at my old house. I tampered down the ridge with my foot, and waited. They are persistent and want to keep the ridge/tunnel open. Once he got moving on opening up the tunnel again, I just watched the ridge as it raised, and timed it (not difficult) right to catch him, by jamming a spade shovel into the exact spot he was working on. Got him good, and that was the end of that.

:eek: Murderer!
:D

[SIKSUKR]

I caught a mole at my old house. I tampered down the ridge with my foot, and waited. They are persistent and want to keep the ridge/tunnel open. Once he got moving on opening up the tunnel again, I just watched the ridge as it raised, and timed it (not difficult) right to catch him, by jamming a spade shovel into the exact spot he was working on. Got him good, and that was the end of that.

I was talking to my partner about moles he at at his house and killed some the same way with a pitch fork.When his sprinkler system came on he found that he had poked a bunch of holes in the pipe!

[nj2nh]

I know squirrels are moles, but this thread reminded me of a sweet little old lady who lived near friends of mine down here in Jersey. The woman used to catch squirrels in one of those Have-A-Heart traps because she couldn't stand the darned things. Our friends thought she then got in her car and took them to the park or some such place and let them go. Turns out that she used to put the trap right behind her car and turn on the engine, thus asphyxiating them! It's terrible, but we still had to laugh. So much for the sweet little old lady image!

And then there is the mother of my college roommate. She was big into gardening. Lived just west of Boston. She had windows replaced in her saltbox house. Between the double-hung windows, she put in these tiny narrow ones. They were gun turrets. When a "varmint" would wander into her garden, she would open a turret and fire away. When she got one, she would draw its picture on the huge chalkboard she leaned against her old cooking fireplace in the kitchen and then "X' it out. Again, demented, but funny!

nj2nh

[Rose]

Here's a link from the UMass Extension website with regards to controlling moles.

http://www.umassturf.org/mangement_updates/2008_archive/08_may_09.html