How To Kill A Mole?

There are many people who can spend many hours trying to perfect their garden, pruning each shrub and spending time picking out the flowers and caring for the lawn to get everything looking just right. However, even if you just like to keep your lawn looking nice and well cared for, moles can be a devastating presence, and the first you will know is when you wake up one day to find one or more molehills disrupting the look of the lawn. It is natural to want to deal with the animal as quickly as possible, and as moles are solitary animals, in most cases as long as you kill it, then it is rare that you will have several moles present at the same time.


Can You Poison A Mole?

One of the interesting aspects about moles is that they are quite different from the pest animals that venture above the surface, and actually share many of their traits with spiders in terms of the way they hunt and eat. Their diet is largely made up of earthworms and grubs, and the mole has a toxin it can use to paralyze its prey and store it for future eating, but it will only ever eat its prey when it is alive. For this reason, it is very difficult to poison a mole, as you would need to apply the poison to a live grub or earthworm and then place this into the mole's tunnels, which is simply not practical in terms of efficient ways to deal with the animals.


Mole Traps

The most common way to deal with a mole problem is to use traps, but bear in mind that even using the least intrusive traps will still leave you with some further repairs to the surface, as they do need to be dug into the mole tunnels themselves. The first type of trap is one which has either a spear or scissor motion to kill the mole, and is usually pushed from the surface into the body of a mole tunnel near the surface. Tunnel traps and box traps require a hole to be dug the size of the full trap, and the trap embedded in the tunnel. In each case, the design is for the mole to move across the trigger, and for the trap to either crush it or close quickly around it to kill the animal.


Fumigating A Mole Run

One option which is a lot more expensive, but can be easier than the occasionally hit and miss approach of trapping, fumigating the mole's tunnels will have to be arranged with a professional. Essentially they will pump noxious fumes into the mole's network of tunnels, and over a period, these will build up to lethal levels and kill the mole. The number of professionals offering this service is relatively limited, and you will usually find mole trappers more common than those people who offer fumigating services of this kind.


Preventing Future Mole Problems In A Yard Or Garden

If you are having mole problems and want to look at taking action to prevent issues in the future, there are steps that you can take, but they can be a challenge, especially if your garden is already mature. The most effective way to keep moles away from a lawn is to install a layer of mesh around four to six inches below the surface, which will prevent the moles from being able to dig their tunnels at their preferred depths. The best time to carry out this kind of work is if you are already planning to revamp your yard or garden, although if the problem is regular, it may be time to bite the bullet and have the anti-mole netting installed.



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