We have lived here for 11 months and for 10 months we’ve been trying to get rid of the moles. Our efforts have only enticed them to invite their friends to move in and live here as well. We mow their mounds and cover their holes. We’ve set boxes and boxes of smoke bombs down their holes, ‘some offspring’ have even set the occasional fire cracker right into their holes. We’ve tried digging them up and setting garden hoses directly into their runs, while sitting nearby with shot guns… nothing so far has worked. You’d think, that if nothing else, we’d have at least irritated a few of them enough to leave. We truly hate the little (British bad word)!!!
Now, it may sound awful or evil or cruel, but we are gleefully excited and sort of proud, the barn cats have figured them out! Spring is here and the feline are on the prowl. Just in case you are new to this site, let me clear up any misconceptions one might have, I am not a ‘cat person’. In fact prior to this weekend, I would have probably said that the barn cats’ best features are that, they clean up their own poop. If there is an order of affection for our 6 cats, I’d have to say Roo would be near the bottom… 5 or 6 for most of us. She is small and fierce, not funny or cuddly, but her ranking to ‘valuable’ and ‘down right like-able’ was elevated Friday night, as she caught the first mole! Roo mostly seemed to play with it to death, but honestly one less mole is one less mole! We quickly alerted the media, that we had a cat that was worth something, okay well, maybe we didn’t do that but there was a flurry of texts to the ‘cat loving off-spring’ that Roo had done it! Pooh followed up Saturday by pouncing on a mouse and as we left for church Sunday morning all 5 barn cats were staking out different mole hills around the pond. When we came home, there on the pathway waiting for us was another deceased mole. This one was sort of gross, so I did have to divert my eyes, as I don’t really like dead things or rodents and so this qualifies as a ‘twofer’, but still I was happy about it. I just couldn’t look at it. Go Cats, Go!
Hard to believe that anything this small could make such a mess of things or be so destructive and yes, it is dead and on its way to the trash can.
Out in our small orchard the mole hills out number the trees, so all I can say is “Here kitty, kitty”.
Ellen,
found you from farmgirl friday. WELCOME to the PNW! I moved here 2 years ago from the burbs of bustling Dallas – Fort Worth metroplex. What a wonderful change! Oh those moles – you will never get rid of them 🙁 You just have to keep the population in check. Unfortunately our area cats just bat them around and let them go right back into the tunnels 🙁 I have been using (with success) the victor mole traps. Instead of placing the dirt back over the hole, I place a dark bucket with a rock on top – makes trap easy to check and find. google my blog mossytrees.blogspot and search for “stupid moles must die” title for my full review (my search bar is at the bottom of the page). just be sure not to catch pocket gophers as they are an endangered and protected species in our WA state.
Danielle,
Thanks we will give it a try. It seems this week that the cats have gone back to mice catching and the moles are just taunting us! I will certainly check out your blog as well as the Victor mole traps.
I heard of a guy who got a long hose of some sort, hooked it up to the exhaust pipe of his diesel truck, stuck the hose down a gopher hole, turned on the truck and let it run for awhile. He had great success with this procedure. Good luck Ellen!!!!
I do have gophers right now so I can understand your stress over all the holes. My front lawn is like swiss cheese. However, those little moles are pretty darn cute and as pesky as they are, I sure do like them more than cats!