Moles
Moles live most of their life underground and are highly specialized animals for their subterranean way of life. The eastern mole is a small, sturdy animal, 5½ to 8 inches long, with somewhat cylindrical body and elongated head. Eastern moles are grayish brown on the back to pale or browner on the belly. Their velvety fur often has slivery sheen and occasionally has bright orange or cinnamon-yellow markings. Their fleshy snout is a highly sensitive organ of touch and smell used to find food sources. Their tiny eyes are concealed in fur and covered by fused eyelids, and their sight is limited to distinguishing light from dark. They have greatly enlarged front feet, which they normally hold with the soles vertical and pointing outward. Their well-developed claws have a specialized bone attached to the wrist that aids in digging.
Mole’s construct feeding tunnels in the surface of lawns and ornamental beds at a rate of 1 foot per minute. They are most active when soles are moist, and earthworms are near the soil surface. They eat 70 to 80 percent of their body weight daily, and earthworms constitute 85 percent of their diet. Mole’s feed and rest on two-hour cycles throughout the day and night. This combination of behaviors explains how moles can cause so much damage in such little time.
Mole repellents usually contain castor oil as the active ingredient and come in a spray or granular form. Repellents can be effective if application rates, frequency and techniques listed on the label are strictly followed.
The following steps will increase your chances of successfully controlling moles:
- Use a broom handle or similar stick to poke holes through the top of feeding tunnels at random throughout the tunnel network.
- Two to three hours later, inspect the holes. A hole replugged with soil indicates a mole passed through that feeding tunnel, making it an active feeding tunnel for that day. Not all feeding tunnels are used daily.
- Set traps on or insert baits into active feeding tunnels. To reduce human scent, wear rubber gloves when setting traps or inserting baits.
- Continue to trap and bait until activity ceases. Controlling a few moles in an average size lawn (5,000 square feet) will greatly reduce mole activity.
Effective mole traps are available in three styles: harpoon, hoop, and scissor traps. Newer scissor traps are very easy to set. Available baits, all of which contain small quantities of rodenticides, include water-based gels that are applied through a syringe and several worm and grub shaped baits.
Caution: You don’t want to use baits anytime or anywhere in areas your family pet uses, potentially harming your own animal. A lot of dogs like to dig, so to prevent them from getting sick, use a trap!
Moles are a continuous problem. A given area can support a certain number of moles. When the mole population decreases, other moles will move into the area searching for earthworms and other insects. For this reason, trapping is the most economical method of mole control.
If you’d like to view the traps we use as professionals, then check out our online shop. Or if you have a mole problem and don’t want to deal with it yourself, then contact Aerations Only and we’ll help you trap the moles.
