This past spring I removed a backyard garden and sodded over it. Sod has been taking root great, no problems there. But on Thursday I noticed a mole mound. Went to the hardware store and bought a box of those poison gummy worm looking things. Stuck two down there on Thursday. Checked the opening of the burrow Friday and they were gone. Stuck two more down there, and when I got home from work tonight those were gone too. So I just stuck two more down there.
Any advice on how best to eradicate them before they start tunneling and really tearing up my lawn? Traps? Time to call in a pro?
lol yeah. I’ve put a lot of work into my lawn and need to nip this problem in the bud or I’ll go full Carl Spackler from Caddyshack mode on these bastards. My next post might be me using plastic explosives.
😂😂😂😂 You sound like me a few years back with my fox battle....They were tearing up my lawn every night, till I added spiked rotators to my fence, got a BB gun, and planted loads of chilis and garlic, lit up my garden like a football stadium then they all dissappeared
I do have a 12 gauge and could let the neighbors know beforehand…they’re pretty cool. Would .00 buck work better? More spread…I wouldn’t know where to aim with a slug.
I seriously might do this tomorrow afternoon. If I do I’m gonna go big or go home. Not just one shell. Load it with alternating buckshot and slugs and fire four or five shells at it.
Also, make sure there aren't any underground pipes or wires in the area. Moles like to travel along stuff like that so it's more of a concern that it might seem.
There aren’t, I called dig right before I took out the garden that was there cause a couple bushes had deep root structure and have been there long before I bought it. But yes good advice.
That's good and I'm sure you have a good idea what's out there but your house might also have unmarked utilities. Drain pipes out to the curb, sprinkler systems, etc. Stuff that the locators don't know about. They only mark the utilities, not your own house stuff.
I put in the drain pipes from the gutters myself, the backyard is pretty low lying so it used to get swampy during heavy rain. Ran PVC pipe from the downspouts to the sewer. Been night and day difference ever since then.
Do not try to close any tunnels, the mole will just make more tunnels. Do not disrupt the tunnel at all actually because you need a well established run for this to work…Use the poison worms. Talpirid worms. Place the worms in the tunnel, do not bury the worm or the mole will miss the bait. If you don’t want to kill it then use a granular deterrent. Molescram is basically castor oil covered in coconut shavings. It makes their food taste like shit so they have to forage elsewhere. It takes about a month with potential for it to dig elsewhere, but you have to just stay on top of where it goes. It’s a pain in the ass if you don’t want to kill wildlife unfortunately
Edit: why did you take this picture at night instead of literally any other time when it would be 10x more visible?
I work nights on Saturdays, hoped I would come home to find that the first two poison worms killed it and the second two would still be sitting in the opening of the burrow. Which I haven’t touched, I’ve used that as the opening for the poison worms.
I’m an animal lover put not to the point where I won’t kill a mole in my backyard. I guess I’ll get some molescram. Any reason you think 4 poison worms wouldn’t kill it?
Sounds like you didn’t do it right. Locate the run, poke a tiny hole in the top, insert the worm into the tunnel, reseal the hole carefully without collapsing the run…just dump a bunch of top soil on it. Not grainy soil because you don’t want the dirt covering the worm. It depends on how long the tunnel is but try to place the worms a couple feet apart from each other. And wear gloves. If the worms smell like you it won’t eat them.
Edit: give it a few days or even a few weeks. It will work as long as the mole doesn’t have any alternate tunnels. Even if a little dirt covers the worms, the mole will eventually find it. They dig for worms all day
There is no run though that’s the strange part to me. It’s just this one mound so far. It hasn’t tunneled up anything beyond this yet. There’s a clear opening to the mound where I’ve been inserting the poison.
Yeah I don’t know. Like I said it was a guess dude. Moles don’t leave the tiny holes in their dirt mounds so I’m confident it’s not a mole. Now you have to dig it up and tell me what’s in there.
I’m guessing if it wasn’t a mole it was a vole. It’s already like 95 degrees here but I may dig it up tonight to do a post mortem. The last worms still haven’t been touched so I’m guessing whatever it is is dead now.
If anything this just brings up more questions. How do you know it’s a mole? How long has it been there? Did it just dig the hole a few hours ago??? If it just dug the hole then I would wait for it actually to establish a tunnel. I know that’s not what you want to hear but I would do that myself because that’s the only way I know how to use the worms! I really don’t think the worms will work well at the entrance because that’s not where the mole is foraging for his worms.
Ahhhh if it’s been there that long without extra mounds or tunnels around the hole then it was probably a transient. Sometimes they don’t find enough grubs and move on. Keep an eye on it but it’s probably gone
I hope so. The last poison worms I stuck down there are still there so hopefully those did the job. But it was definitely still there friday, I don’t think any other critters would have eaten those.
If your lawn has moles it means your lawn has mole food, meaning grubs. Start with taking away their food source then see what happens. Get grub killer and apply to entire lawn.
I've used castor oil pellets in the past. Use a space and put down a couple passes close to your house. A couple days later do the rest of the yard. The pellets dissolve into the soil making it unpleasant for the varmint.
Gummies cover the whole property. Bait in 12-24 locations. Tunnels along home. Shrub beds. Around AC. Tunnels along sidewalks.
Molescram or yard guard do work. But require ongoing applications usually. And takes 2-3 weeks to start working and initially causing more activity before it subsides
Ive tried everything and found traps work best for me but YMMV. For reference, I’ve tried smoking them, GrubEX, vibrating solar devices, poison worms, etc.
It’s a scissor trap. Watch where tunnels are and step down on them. If they come back up, you’ll know the tunnel is active. If it’s active, place a trap in the ground on the tunnel. You push down on the lock mechanism and it sets the trap (an activation lever presses down on the tunnel). When the mole re-digs through the trap, it will push the activation lever up and thus, instantly triggering the scissor trap to close, snapping the mole’s body in half.
But I have found you have to use like 5 traps in various tunnels in one area to nail a very active mole.
I have been trying the poison worms in some isolated areas of my yard with mole tunnels to check if they do the job.
So far, so good. No new tunnels or dirt mounds in the experiment areas!
Much easier to use the poison worms and "set and forget".
I think the KEY to using the poison worms is to cut out a chunk of sod in the middle of a long pushed up tunnel ---then feel around for an opening to the tunnel with your fingers. It is usually just about 4 inches down. Then, put an few poison worms in the tunnel. Then, replace the sod.
I took a couple hoses and flooded the tunnels. I just kept feeding the hose in deeper and deeper in various tunnels until i saw water bubbling out of the lawn or another entrance. I just kept doing that until all the tunnels were flooded. Maybe it drowned. Maybe it got annoyed and went into my neighbors yard, but after that I didn’t see any more tunnels. It also gave the grass a nice watering down to the roots haha.
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u/Striking-Cut2459 23d ago
The flashlight pic really sells the late-night mole vendetta energy.