When you discovered that you have moles sharing your yard, did you ask yourself “Why do I have moles?” The answer, if you don’t already know it, is because your yard contains a lot of food. Lawn moles love a beautiful lawn especially when the lawn holds semi-moist soil and lots of six and eight legged insects. Most people believe that moles eat roots or bulbs but actually they eat mainly insects. Their menu usually consists of ants, earthworms and beetle grubs.
The moles day job is to tunnel and not just one but multiple tunnels.
The lawn moles build two types of tunnels, one is called the main tunnel and the other is called a feeding tunnel. There can be numerous tunnels but the main tunnel is just that, the main tunnel that leads into the moles home underneath your lawn and takes the mole to smaller tunnels that lead to various places within his underground home. The feeding tunnels are closer to the surface of your lawn, which are about four inches deep and are usually the ridges you see when looking at your yard.
One key characteristic of a mole is that they create round piles of dirt on the surface of the ground. These mounds are from the moles construction processes that are occurring underneath as it is growing the main tunnel. Moles are constantly constructing new tunnels so the piles of dirt and ridges are never ending until the mole no longer exists in your yard.
Many people after they discover that their yard houses lawn moles underestimate the damage that the mole(s) has done. A study done by the University of Purdue, moles can create about 12 to 15 feet of new tunnels every hour that they work. This is plain crazy; can you imagine how much of your yard they have actually tunneled through? Another study, done by Trent University, stated that one particular moles main tunnel went the span of about 204 meters away from its nest!
As stated earlier, the holes that moles create are round and have mounds of dirt surrounding the opening with a plug. Mole should not be confused with Gophers, a similar creature, creates their holes in a horseshoe shape.
You have finally determined that you have moles and not gophers; it is time to decide how you will get rid of them forever. There are numerous processes that you can use and many of them either don’t produce any results or provide inconsistent results which don’t work for you either. The best way is to trap the mole. Moles are territorial so you shouldn’t have more than one or two in your yard and they can dominate up to four acres of land per mole. The main disadvantage of trapping is that if you don’t catch all of the moles, your problems may continue. The key to solving your problem is the find the main tunnels and trap them before they can further destroy your yard.
