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Moles or Gophers


Aunt Jen

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:) I have an increasing number of holes/dirt mounds appearing in the back yard. Looks like moles or gophers.

 

Now, I live in town, so I can't wait n use Bessie (12 gauge), so I must be civic about it.

 

I've used those smoke bombs (they toss spent cores out by next morning, poison worms (didn't eat 'em)....

 

Now, I've put down repellent, and I've hooked my generator up to a hole and am carbon monOxiding them at length.

 

I believe they're entering/did enter from the neighbor's yard, under a stone block fence.

 

What do you cowboys think is a hood method to rid the yard if them? (other than the Army)??

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Probably moles.

Stick a half stick of juicy fruit gum in an active run. It works. Something about the flavoring of juicy fruit attracts them and they cannot digest the gum, kills them.

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one other possible critter that's causin' problems round here:

 

http://www.9news.com/story/life/home-garden/2015/03/25/voles-lawns-pests/70420304/

 

 

I'd attempt tha Juicy Fruit before tha poison, never know whut else cud git ahold of it.....

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Juicy fruit works for moles for sure. Wear gloves when you stick it down into a trail so as not to leave human sent.

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Use pin wheels when the pin wheel turns the vibration transfers into the ground, they don't like that, they will move on.

 

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You'd probably know if they were gophers as they spend a lot of time "outside."

 

Moles seldom show up "outside" unless there is free beer or videos of someone flying solo. Moles eat grass roots and grubs around here. The standard treatment in this part of the world is to apply magic powder to the lawn. No kidding. The powder is biologically and politically correct. At least in Nawth Kalina. It's "Milky Spore" powder. The spores do awful things to the grubs, but if you've ever seen a grub face to face you won't much care what it does.

 

When we lived in Minnesnowta, the gophers in my extremely PC neighborhood were a major problem. The problem was major simply because those liberal featherheads absolutely would not sanction any form of vermin control that worked. So I sat out on the patio for awhile after work and then the back deck awhile. A couple of evenings a week for a couple of weeks worked famously. Eight or 8.5 grain, .177 pellets are just about perfect for the suckers. You can actually hear them squeaking to each other and it's good to listen carefully as Minnesnowta liberals also make squeaking noises as they move to and from their Priuses and it's propitious to shoot only one of the two pests with those light pellets.

 

As for narrowing down which you have, gophers or moles there is a problem. Moles seldom leave too many holes around. Gophers do but not where they're too obvious. If you're not seeing them cute little spotted furry things and have more than one or two holes, I would personally suggest that you have snakes. But there is a perfect solution for snakes. The Danish army developed it. It's a cute little, roughly golfball size concussion grenade that's just about perfect.

 

Hope this has been helpful.

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Gum, no matter the flavor, (Juicy Fruit, Bubble gum etc) doesn't work. It's B.S. Poisons aren't good if you have domestic animals.

Sounds to me that you have gophers. Gophers leave a single mound of dirt, their runs are usually underground. Moles have distinctive runs that you can see on top of the soil.

For gophers we use traps. My wife digs out the dirt in the mound. You have two runs generaly, sometimes three. You set your trap into one of the runs and cover it. You'll have a gopher in about 2hours or so. If not try another run or mound. Our township rewards us with a whopping $2 a tail. Last year we got $60!

 

Never had much luck with moles. Poisons, solar sticks, battery powered sticks and other methods just don't seem to work. There are some chemicals you can use that contain castor oil that you apply to your lawn. You have to make sure you leave them an escape route or you'll trap them in an area and they won't leave. We've had the best luck with a pitchfork. You just keep stabbing the runs. Eventually you'll kill the little critters but it takes a lot of patience.

 

If you don't mind holes in your lawn/turf a good dog will hear them and dig them up. They generaly just kill them. I've only had one dog that ever ate one. Apparently they taste pretty bad

 

There are some commercial solutions. One involves injecting propane into the trenches and igniting the propane. Bam:! Dead moles. I've seen it done but it's messy. We had a deputy sheriff who bought the system and was hiring himself out for a part-time job.

 

You'll get a lot of advice and tales on what and what doesn't work. For the wife and I the above measures did work and we tried lots of bubble gum etc. Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!

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:) I have an increasing number of holes/dirt mounds appearing in the back yard. Looks like moles or gophers.

 

Now, I live in town, so I can't wait n use Bessie (12 gauge), so I must be civic about it.

 

I've used those smoke bombs (they toss spent cores out by next morning, poison worms (didn't eat 'em)....

 

Now, I've put down repellent, and I've hooked my generator up to a hole and am carbon monOxiding them at length.

 

I believe they're entering/did enter from the neighbor's yard, under a stone block fence.

 

What do you cowboys think is a hood method to rid the yard if them? (other than the Army)??

A one pound can of FFFFg powder worked for me about 35 years ago.

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If you have moles then you have healthy soil because its full of earthworms which is their mainstay diet. They absolutely don't eat grass!!! If you can stand the unsightly tunneling for about a month then consider it a free lawn aeration which is highly beneficial.

 

Gophers are another matter. I poison them with a commercially available bait. Consult your County Extension Service for advice!

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Yes. I'm guessing that most of the indicators I have are for a smaller gopher species, per 2" diameter holes, plugged mounds, and some shallow yet some deeper tunnels.

 

http://www.thegopherguy.com/pages/pestid.html

 

I just gassed em with 4 hrs of CO, carbon monoxide, down 2 different holes, and laid down repellent on one side to protect the rest of the yard.

 

I leveled all mounds after the gassing.

 

If I find mounds in the morning, I'll go to poison and traps.

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Grandpa dug them up with a potato fork. Would mash down the hill then sit on the porch drinking coffee or ice tea and wait. Whe he saw activity he would slowly get up grab the fork and carefully walk out to the mound. Critter would leave but come right back in short order if you stood real still. As soon as the mound started working he would plunge in the fork and let the dirt fly. If the fork didn't stab the little varmint right off, he would stab it as soon as it hit the ground. Probaly had at least a 50% success rate. Buried the dead right back in the hole he came out of.

 

Also had a lot of success with the vertical harpoon style of traps. Takes practice and attention to detail to learn to set them right; but once you get the hang of them they work well. You have to place them on one of the frequently used tunnels tunnels and not the mound. Also try not to introduce any thing foreign to the tunnel where you sit the trap. Press the earth down with the sole of your shoe or a rubber gloved hand that has fresh grass rubbed on it to help mask your sent.

 

Here is a good discussion of how and where to place mole traps.

 

If you have gophers then you need these kinds of traps. The easiest way to tell which you have is by the shape of the mounds.

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Sounds like pocket gophers. I've had great success with these:

http://www.traplineproducts.com/

 

I dig a hole at the burrow opening and clean out the tunnel in each direction. I put a trap down each tunnel. I don't fill in the hole. I just cover the hole with a piece of wood so I don't get some other critter trying to get dowin in the hole. One other piece of advice. To the trap, attach about a 2 foot section of some sort of light chain and stake it to the ground outside the hole. This is to prevent the little sucker from taking your trap back into his tunnel. That happened to me one time. The trap was gone when I went to check it. It showed up a couple of days later in another tunnel with the gopher in it! The trap was not the kind that I referenced in the above website, but a different kind that I bought at Orchard Supply. Never had any escapees from any of the trapline traps and I've gotten some big gophers. Big enough to put on the Bar-B :wacko:

 

Good luck and happy huntin'!

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I've had moles before. They moved in by tunneling underneath a fence. The first thing I saw was a line of grass that was dying. Then, more lines. I went to the local county extension office. They told me to lay down some Grub-X over the lawn to kill the source of the food, and some pellets to put at any entrances I could find. I did.

 

The lines continued. A week later, they broke to the surface right in the middle of the lawn. I left it alone. In a few days, I could see at least four holes that were obviously being used in that spot. I dug a little pit so that all the holes were at the same level, and put the garden hose down into it, and turned it on. A few minutes go by and a mole came out. I whapped it with a shovel. I got 4 of his little friends, too. When the water started to back up. I shut it off. I dumped the dead moles far away from the hole. The next day, I did it again. Two more. The next day, one more. The next 3 days, no more. Problem solved.

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Sounds like pocket gophers. I've had great success with these:

http://www.traplineproducts.com/

 

I dig a hole at the burrow opening and clean out the tunnel in each direction. I put a trap down each tunnel. I don't fill in the hole. I just cover the hole with a piece of wood so I don't get some other critter trying to get dowin in the hole. One other piece of advice. To the trap, attach about a 2 foot section of some sort of light chain and stake it to the ground outside the hole. This is to prevent the little sucker from taking your trap back into his tunnel. That happened to me one time. The trap was gone when I went to check it. It showed up a couple of days later in another tunnel with the gopher in it! The trap was not the kind that I referenced in the above website, but a different kind that I bought at Orchard Supply. Never had any escapees from any of the trapline traps and I've gotten some big gophers. Big enough to put on the Bar-B :wacko:

 

Good luck and happy huntin'!

+1 on the Trapline traps. My orchard is now gopher-free due to these effective traps.

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Roger on the traplines. WillCo.

 

HIWEVER:

 

I may not need to. It depends on if I killed em or just chased em away for a while.

 

Yesterday I tuned CO into tunnel system for 4 hours from a generator, and then sprayed a wide horseshoe of repellent around them, to force them back where they came.

 

TODAY. for the first time I'm my interventions, I went out there to find NO MOUNDS.

 

I will watch the area to seer if they return.

 

Stay tuned: same bat channel, same bat time.

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I've had moles before. They moved in by tunneling underneath a fence. The first thing I saw was a line of grass that was dying. Then, more lines. I went to the local county extension office. They told me to lay down some Grub-X over the lawn to kill the source of the food, and some pellets to put at any entrances I could find. I did.

 

The lines continued. A week later, they broke to the surface right in the middle of the lawn. I left it alone. In a few days, I could see at least four holes that were obviously being used in that spot. I dug a little pit so that all the holes were at the same level, and put the garden hose down into it, and turned it on. A few minutes go by and a mole came out. I whapped it with a shovel. I got 4 of his little friends, too. When the water started to back up. I shut it off. I dumped the dead moles far away from the hole. The next day, I did it again. Two more. The next day, one more. The next 3 days, no more. Problem solved.

 

It takes Grub-x and White Spore a season to work. We've used White Spore on 3 yards and all had no moles from then on starting the next year and lasted until we moved. We haven't moved here so it seems they are pretty much a once-and-done deal. But the deal takes a year at least.

 

Good thing about the two, is they also clear up Japanese Beetles if you have them in your area. And that was a problem in 2 yards along with the moles.

 

Why bother if you're going to kill them in Human-to-mole battle?

 

Extension division experts (and knowledgeable locals) in Minnesnowta, Atlanta, and here all said pretty much the same thing when discussing moles, gophers and chipmunks. If your yard borders on good habitat, and the owners of it don't do anything about them, you will probably never completely win your battle. We never had a gopher free yard in Minnesnowta. We did have a mole free yard (after awhile) in Atlanta. It didn't have any other problem creatures because that neighborhood was over run with cats that "lived outside" during the day. Our house here only had moles the first and second year cleared up by the white spore, but did have chipmunks that we loved to have around. Unfortunately, in recent years there have been few years where there hasn't been a killer cat. Some have been so bad I had to stop feeding the birds to stop that slaughter. We haven't seen a chipmunk in years.

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Minnesota; Mascot of the U of M is afterall, "The Gophers".

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Minnesota; Mascot of the U of M is afterall, "The Gophers".

 

And their fight song goes like this:

 

I am a gopher guy

I really go for girls

but they don't go for me

I wonder why.

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The explosives route looks like the most entertaining--

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