OT -gophers and moles ruining my yard

Tom N MS

Well-known Member
Whatn will get rid of them--I'm in city limits and
cant use dynamite.Tearing up yard real bad,,making
huge mounds thar have to be mashed down before I
mow; otherwise I would sling all mygrass and dirt
away with the nower,,Rather kill em not just chase
em....Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks
 
I've always put on grub killer and they go away. I put a bunch on last year and it helped for a couple of months but then they were back with a vengence. They are even at it now in the middle of winter.
 
A young Dachshund will give em hell! I had a bad problem a while ago,and got two of them,brothers,and they'd be gone all day,digging up the yard. when they caught one they'd fight like pitbulls over it,then back to work. It was fun watching them too.We have a big Shepard-wolf looking dog now who loves hunting for them.
 
....Thoughts/suggestions?

Prop some wire type container (something see thru) up on a stick and put food under it for a couple of days that they can have. Then with a string around the stick running all the way to the window of your house, pull the string when there's one or two inside. :D

In the old days it was a butter box and a stick.

Don't mind me. . .

I made a rat trap with a sliding steel door. when they go inside and eat from the bait loaded truck door handle hanging inside, it pulls the pin holding the door up -- a length of welding rod.

Then when I catch one, there's a port where a vacuum cleaner hose fits in, and I plug the metal end of that hose, into a car exhaust.

Ra ta tooie :p
 
(quoted from post at 21:13:19 12/05/14) Whatn will get rid of them--I'm in city limits and
cant use dynamite.Tearing up yard real bad,,making
huge mounds thar have to be mashed down before I
mow; otherwise I would sling all mygrass and dirt
away with the nower,,Rather kill em not just chase
em....Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks

Move up here to MN. this time of year the ground is too hard for em....

Rick
 
Ortho grub killer(I get it at walmart)put it on with a spreader, it takes about two years for me to get rid of them. But they stay gone as long as I use grub,tick,And what ever else it kills, every spring. (I live in the middle of a corn field)
 
A friend discovered that a decorative windmill kept the chipmunks out of his yard. It seems that they don't like the vibrations of the windmill turning. Maybe that will work with gophers and moles also.
The windmill he used was about 8 ft. tall and came from Tractor Supply, I think.
Clayton
 
Tom........I once saw a demo atta Ag Show where the guy was trying to sell these gopher guns. Kinda pipe hooked to propane tank with a sparkie trigger. Stick the pipe down into the gopher mound, turn on the propane, and trigger the sparkie in the ground. KaWhoom!!! Dirt showers everywhere. Selling to the grass seed growers in Oregon Willamette Valley.

As said, moles eat grubs (insects) and a grub poison is the ticket for mole control. Altho I once hadda Siamese Cat that would watch a mole mound fer hours and pounce when the dirt was being disturbed. .......Dell
 
Tom, if you have (or have access to) a pull behind sprayer go to a farm store and buy a gallon of Malathion 57%, it is about 30 dollars. A old farmer told me this was the cheapest solution to killing them. I had the same problem and all of my moles are gone. Use 1 cup to 15 gallons of water, I have 2 acres and it takes me 45 gallons to adequately cover my ground. Since you live in town, your yard may be smaller and wont need as much. Starting out, with the problem you describe, use 2 cups per 15 gallons. Then spray it once a month until they are all gone; which wont be too long. Like Dell said, they like grubs and when the grubs are gone; they are gone. My next door neighbor had the same problem. I did this same treatment to his yard and he is mole free as well.
 

My grandpa would fatten the tunnel and sit with a shovel and pitch fork when the tunnel starts poping up block him in and dig him up
 
(reply to post at 21:13:19 12/05/14)

I used grub killer about five years ago and the moles stayed gone for four and a half years so I will be applying again in the spring. The application took me about a half hour and lasted over four years. No way I have time for trapping expeditions.
 
(quoted from post at 07:01:59 12/06/14) Tom, if you have (or have access to) a pull behind sprayer go to a farm store and buy a gallon of Malathion 57%, it is about 30 dollars. A old farmer told me this was the cheapest solution to killing them. I had the same problem and all of my moles are gone. Use 1 cup to 15 gallons of water, I have 2 acres and it takes me 45 gallons to adequately cover my ground. Since you live in town, your yard may be smaller and wont need as much. Starting out, with the problem you describe, use 2 cups per 15 gallons. Then spray it once a month until they are all gone; which wont be too long. Like Dell said, they like grubs and when the grubs are gone; they are gone. My next door neighbor had the same problem. I did this same treatment to his yard and he is mole free as well.

[b:d285568ff9]Mark[/b:d285568ff9] - do you need to keep pets off the yard for a period of time after you apply this?
 
I just decided I really like moles and gophers and
skeeters more than I thought I did.LOL...This is
actually happening in the yard of my
Brother's(actually belongs to Dad)---the yard is
hard as a bone--packed like crazy..
 
Guess He could borrow my son's Dachshund--but then he'd have holes/trenches to step in where the dog went digging...great little dogs-we have had several over the years..
 
When I lived in the Puyallup,Wa.,area,35 yrs ago, I tried any and all types of deterrents from broken glass,hair from the barber,poisons,traps, R12 thru a lawnmower engine, (DEADLY) large firecrackers in the runs etc..
I finally made my own traps and they worked on my 21/2 acre lawn and garden.
I was istalling new sewer lines, lots of short pieces, So I took my posthole auger,dug at the hills 2-3'deep, put cap piece on the 6" plastic pipe
put it in the hole, wore rubber gloves (man smell??) filled around the pipe flush with the bottom of the run, added arout 6" of water, covered the hole witrh amall wooden box,covered the box with dirt,(no noise from the rain?).
I checked about a week later, had 2 moles, covered them with dirt, added more water, Long story short I probably had a couple dozen traps, the next 10 yrs. no moles.
As far as I know the plastic is still in the ground.
 
(quoted from post at 00:13:19 12/06/14) Whatn will get rid of them--I'm in city limits and
cant use dynamite.Tearing up yard real bad,,making
huge mounds thar have to be mashed down before I
mow; otherwise I would sling all mygrass and dirt
away with the nower,,Rather kill em not just chase
em....Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks
he feed/farm stores around the sandy soil parts of east Texas sell Gopher Bait, which is the grain maze, laced with strychnine. In large fields, it is placed underground at the depth of gopher tunnels at the rate of about 9 grains(seeds) every 3 feet, with a 'gopher plow), which has a torpedo like cylinder on a blade and a tube welded on the back of it that drops the seed into the tunnel that it makes. When used you cross gopher tunnels & in cleaning them up & following the new man made 'tunnels', they eat seeds & die. Seeds are underground, so animals are safe.
In small areas like lawn, I use a rod about size of nail bar on which I welded a foot peg at about 10 inches up from bottom. I probe around a mound until I hit the spot where the bar literally falls in......this hollow spot is the tunnel or cavern. I dump about a half dozen seeds in the hole punched by the bar. I don't do this at every mound. Two or three in a mound cluster of 6 or 8 is enough. I buy it in 5 gallon container & treat about 40 acres of hay meadow plus a few small areas & that quantity is enough to last for several years. It works well & fast. If neighbors didn't have infestations (or treated also), I might not have to repeat, but as it is they migrate, so I repeat once in spring & once in fall, when moisture is 'not wet' but enough to hold the man made tunnels from collapsing due to dry sandy loam.
 
You have the answer below, stop the grubs and insects they are feeding on. Go to Lowes and get one of the bagged granulated lawn pest control products for lawns. I like Triazacide (sp?) good for many lawn pests like cinch bugs, grubs, webworms etc. Costs me about $20 to cover 15,000 sq ft of St Augustine once or sometimes twice a year.
 
For gophers I' ve found the "clincher" to be the best mechanical trap..a bit pricey at about $15 but worth it, you may have to order it on-line or go to a nursery to find them...too expensive for the big box stores to carry. Go to you tube to see a demo of the trap and how easy it is to tell when you have made a "catch"..2 of the traps have been all I need for my 2 acres.
 
I keep my dogs off for about 24 hours, if I can. I think they claim it is suppose to be safe shortly after it dries though........I go longer and have never noticed any ill effects from them. Here is an informational link

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/malagen.html
 

Gophers do not eat grubs and bugs. Moles do. Gophers are vegetarians and live off roots. So your grub killers will have no effect on gophers. The little plastic windmills don't work, either.
I've tried them all.

The mounds are gophers. The tunnels are moles. Sometimes you'll see a hill that looks broken up, like it was pushed up from below. That will be a mole. Gopher mounds are smooth because the critter pushes up a little bit of dirt or sand at a time and deposits it an every growing hill. Often the hills are sort of horseshoe shape, the tunnel is usually inside the U of the horseshoe. The tunnel often leads down and away from the opening of the U, but not always. They can do straight down quite a ways, or they may go out a foot or so then make a hard angle.

We live in a place with very sand soil. After a rain, the gophers get busy cleaning out their tunnels, which means pushing dirt to the surface and creating the mounds. My favorite remedy is spotting an active gopher and popping him with my .16 gauge LC Smith double barrel shotgun. I've killed well over 100 gophers by shooting them. But that only works when you see them popping up to the surface while they are active. I guess a .22 would be more sporting but the shotgun is a sure thing and I'm not into this to give the critter a chance.

So, the next best tool is the "Gophinator" trap. Virtually fool proof. When I see a fresh mound, I can nearly always determine where the tunnel was. If it is really fresh, I can usually just poke a couple of fingers down and open the tunnel. Sometimes, the tunnel is so densely back filled, it's not worth the trouble. Once I open the tunnel, I dig down a little to determine if the tunnel splits into two or three other tunnels. If so, I insert a trap into each tunnel 'cause you never know which way he'll be coming from. I virtually always get my gopher. Since I started setting traps about six years ago, I have caught well over 600 gophers. Trapping doesn't give you the instant gratification of shooting them but allows you to just set the trap and go on about your business, then come back and check on it later. When I pull the gopher out of the hole they are usually already dead. Sometimes I have to whack them across the head with a stick to finish them off. I either leave the body out for the buzzards and coyotes, or stick them back down in the tunnels. I've read that a dead gopher in the tunnel is a deterrent to other gophers.

Be sure to attach a metal lead/stringer to the trap (so a gopher can't chew it off) and you'll want to stake the trap down with a dowel or stick or something or the gopher will pull the trap down into the tunnel. He'll eventually die down there but you will have lost your trap. And you have to make sure that there is not a second, or third tunnel down there if you only put in one trap. Otherwise, the boogers will just come through the other tunnel and bury your trap.

They make a smaller version, the Molenator, that will fit in mole tunnels.

http://www.traplineproducts.com/
 
I used a product called Moleknots which are small poison pellets. You open a little hole in the runs and drop a few in and recover. It worked on my moles.

For the gophers try a 5 iron.
 
(quoted from post at 06:39:54 12/06/14) When I lived in the Puyallup,Wa.,area,35 yrs ago, I tried any and all types of deterrents from broken glass,hair from the barber,poisons,traps, R12 thru a lawnmower engine, (DEADLY) large firecrackers in the runs etc..
I finally made my own traps and they worked on my 21/2 acre lawn and garden.
I was istalling new sewer lines, lots of short pieces, So I took my posthole auger,dug at the hills 2-3'deep, put cap piece on the 6" plastic pipe
put it in the hole, wore rubber gloves (man smell??) filled around the pipe flush with the bottom of the run, added arout 6" of water, covered the hole witrh amall wooden box,covered the box with dirt,(no noise from the rain?).
I checked about a week later, had 2 moles, covered them with dirt, added more water, Long story short I probably had a couple dozen traps, the next 10 yrs. no moles.
As far as I know the plastic is still in the ground.

Sounds like a lot of work when you could have just sprayed the grub killer and be rid of the moles for four years.
 
I told ya the other day ya had skeeters and gators, now its goferrrs and moles its a hint from somewhere, move north cold and snow will fix your problems.
 
just a thought,dig in the mound and give them dog poo,they soon leave and you clean up the yard.works for me..
 
Interesting point, not sure to which critter was being referred to as a "Gopher". Here in the SE USA Gophers are what is commonly referred to as a "Gopher Turtle" which actually is a type of tortoise. In my part of FL we have none of those little furry Gophers, just the hard shelled ones.
 
(quoted from post at 17:29:52 12/07/14) Interesting point, not sure to which critter was being referred to as a "Gopher". Here in the SE USA Gophers are what is commonly referred to as a "Gopher Turtle" which actually is a type of tortoise. In my part of FL we have none of those little furry Gophers, just the hard shelled ones.

The smart money is on the rodent.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top