Moles

[Pete.]

View attachment 407465As a few know from November too about may I catch moles for a living, gotten quite good at it too 154 their in a week and that’s about a normal week I try and average 5-600 a month

You must have a powered swivel chair

 

[redlig]

Moles have been visiting for a few years now and plays havoc with out garden and would like to get rid of them , any tips. I've tried trapping with moderate effect. I've tried a small radio tuned to radio 4, no results. I'm into crushed garlic in the tunnel, no results. The current visiting pest seems to go round in circles as if it has one hand bigger than the other so proves difficult to find a straight tunnel to place the trap into. Thinking of dynamite next but thought I'd ask for advice first.

View attachment 407449

I,ve used a petrol mower , not what you think, connect exhaust to piece of pipe and poke it into the run . It,s worked a couple of times.

 

[Onoff]

View attachment 407465As a few know from November too about may I catch moles for a living, gotten quite good at it too 154 their in a week and that’s about a normal week I try and average 5-600 a month

Bet you've got lovely soft trousers!

Seriously, is there a market for the pelts?

Can you eat them?

 

[highseas]

Bet you've got lovely soft trousers!

Seriously, is there a market for the pelts?

Can you eat them?

Oddly yes pelts are worth about 60p rack when dried, but I stopped selling them when they went below £1 about 10 years ago!

I get paid per mole to catch them

Moles don’t taste very good, not horrific like cormorant but not good eather

 

[daleyd]

Oddly yes pelts are worth about 60p rack when dried, but I stopped selling them when they went below £1 about 10 years ago!

I get paid per mole to catch them

Moles don’t taste very good, not horrific like cormorant but not good eather

We had a farm cat, like @Bobtail4x4 mentioned above, that was amazing at catching moles - pretty much anything he caught he would eat, apart from moles and shrews.

 

[redlig]

View attachment 407465As a few know from November too about may I catch moles for a living, gotten quite good at it too 154 their in a week and that’s about a normal week I try and average 5-600 a month

Sorry I thought you said you killed MULES .

 

[Onoff]

Moles don’t taste very good, not horrific like cormorant but not good eather

I did ask!

 

[Tom O]

Over here we have prairie dogs there was a guy using a vacuum truck to empty out the tunnels,

 

[Bobtail4x4]

We had a farm cat, like @Bobtail4x4 mentioned above, that was amazing at catching moles - pretty much anything he caught he would eat, apart from moles and shrews.

same as this one, she had 2 or 3 mice a day, never ate moles or shrews.

 

[Onoff]

Over here we have prairie dogs there was a guy using a vacuum truck to empty out the tunnels,

Sucker!

 

[winchman]

View attachment 407465As a few know from November too about may I catch moles for a living, gotten quite good at it too 154 their in a week and that’s about a normal week I try and average 5-600 a month

Wow that's a lot. You just don't realize how many moles we have under our feet. Its a pity you cant find a use for them?

 

[500e]

I think he has

 

[graffian]

Moles don’t taste very good, not horrific like cormorant but not good eather

That will be why topcat used to bring them and throw them about but never ate them.

My dad had lots of moles in the garden. He made toy windmills from bits of X-ray film, and gradually moved them
from the middle of the lawn out to the corners of the garden, the moles went next door. They don't like the vibrations?


I have been doing his garden and some plant was growing down by the garden fire, it didn't look like any thing I had seen[weeds] so I was going to move it.
I took a photo of it and looked on some identify my planty website, it came back as a mole tree, it is meant to make the worms taste nasty so the moles leave.

 

[Migmac]

Bet you've got lovely soft trousers!

Seriously, is there a market for the pelts?

Can you eat them?

Fox cubs play with dead moles but you don’t often see any eaten ones at fox dens. Must taste bad if they won’t eat them

 

[dobbslc]

Over here we have prairie dogs there was a guy using a vacuum truck to empty out the tunnels,

This is our version.
The BV6000.
Bunny vac.

 

[highseas]

Wow that's a lot. You just don't realize how many moles we have under our feet. Its a pity you cant find a use for them?

A normal density is 3-5 to a acre possibly more on good habitat, their fascinating little creatures, I could talk all day about them!

 

[Gareth J]

SWMBO was gearing up for a long war of attrition against my pet mole ruining her flowerbeds.
Three traps as @brightspark recommends, 4 solar-powered sonic thingies, 1 litre of Castor Oil and a big container of some vegan discourager stuff (she spends far too long using Mrs Google)

I placed the three traps in the runs under the newest looking mole hills.

SWMBE checked them next day and we have one dead mole!


View attachment 407455

Am I good, or am I good??

How long before a new mole takes over dead mole's territory?

You did well to catch one in a trap that shiny. Common practice here is to bury traps for a while before use on account of the moles' incredible sense of smell. Though, considering you caught so quickly, maybe it's an old wives' tale.

 

[dobbslc]

The mole probably lost his sense of smell after catching COVID

 

[Onoff]

We rarely get them here, guessing due to the amount of flint in the soil.

 

[rtcosic]

We rarely get them here, guessing due to the amount of flint in the soil.

Presumably, that's why the little chap left my lawn alone and had a field day with SWMBO's flower beds.
Our garden is over the old farmhouse farmyard and is rubble and clay with about 50mm of dubious 'soil' under the developer's special turf.
I rotovated the flower beds down to about 300mm, carted off about 3 tonnes of rubble and stones, and added about 1 tonne of stable scrapings and compost. Lovely and fine.