With all the money and time we invest into our properties, from lush green lawns to well manicured landscaping. It is hard to understand why some people live with moles and voles destroying their beautified yards. These little animals wreak havoc and destruction in a very short time from when their presence is first noticed.

Moles leave an assortment of clustered mounded tunnels visible across your lawn. These are the patterns of hungry little moles when they are feeding on grubs and earthworms. Moles are mainly carnivorous and can burrow approximately eighteen feet per hour seeking food. They sometimes put in work in the ball park of over one hundred feet per day, which is amazing relative to their small size. This is equivalent to an average sized person digging a tunnel over twelve hundred feet! Remember that they are capable of creating one hundred feet of NEW tunnels per day, that is not including the other tunnels they have made previously. 

Moles breed in the early to late Spring and have about a 42 day gestational period. They give birth to around 3 to 5 pups in the late Spring to early Summer. Therefore, the April & May are the most important times to start trapping moles before they can reproduce. The young stay with their mother for up to a month and then they are on their own to make newer feeding areas and travel tunnels.

Grub treatments and other insecticides may eradicate grubs in your lawn, but there will still be plenty of insects for the moles to eat. Grubs only make up approximately ten percent of a mole's diet. The remaining percentage consists of earthworms and other burrowing insects including beetles, grasshoppers and flies. Grain-based mole baits containing pesticides and rodenticides like Zinc-phosphide do not usually work because moles do not normally eat grain. If they are not attracted to the bait, then they are not likely to ingest the poison. There are also "gummy worm" mole baits on the market that contain Bromethalin, an anticoagulant rodenticide. There is no solid evidence of the efficacy of these, because they are buried in a mole's feeding tunnels with hopes the mole will return to the same tunnel and ingest the plastic worm. These worms do resemble an amber candy gummy worm and this leads to safety concerns if translocated worms are ingested by children or domestic animals. Remember that your family's safety is paramount and to take proper precautions when using chemical treatments, pesticides, rodenticides and natural repellents.

Voles are also known as Meadow voles or Meadow Mice, are primarily vegetarians who make lightening bolt looking patterns (photo below) of dead grass tufts that are easily removed when pulled. They decimate grass, garden vegetables, fruits and flower bulbs by eating their succulent root bed systems. They are also known for girdling plants, trees and shrubs by stripping the bark off their bases. This girdling can stunt or kill the damaged plants. Mice, rats and other wildlife including snakes use vole tunnels to navigate properties in search of food, water and harborage. Vole tunnels located under mulch beds in close proximity to a building's foundation can lead to complications with residential and commercial rodent control efforts. Therefore, a proper exterior rodent control program is necessary to efficiently manage or eliminate both the interior (if applicable) & exterior rodent populations.

There are many tall tales of putting chewing gum, mothballs, tin foil or gum wrappers into their tunnels, all of which truly do not work. If you are "lucky" enough to annoy the moles or voles they will reciprocate with digging around the obstacles, leading to even more tunnels. Electronics, ultra-sonics, thumpers, windmills and other noise makers have never proved effective and are never part of our solution to your concern.

                                           Ask about our monthly, bi-monthly or annual mole and vole control programs.

Mole & Vole Control

(516) 366-0317

(631) 488-1258

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