Shrew or mole: how to identify a pest and choose measures to control it?

Hello! Sometimes neighbors come to me with such strange questions that it seems as if they have not lived for ten years in their plots.

Last spring, a neighbor complained that after the winter there were a lot of small earthen slides throughout the site.

I could not understand, moles give her this inconvenience or other residents of the underworld. Want to know how to determine: a shrew or a mole digging pits? What actions can be taken to prevent their activities? I will sign everything in detail in the article below.

Moles, mole rats and shrews. The similarity and difference of rodents

Information about these underground inhabitants is often contradictory, because their lifestyle is not fully understood and has many white spots.

So, how to distinguish a mole from a shrew, what is the difference between them and in fact, these little animals are so dangerous and harmful. Let's get it right.

Shrew

Few saw this animal live, since it lives underground. The shrew looks like a mouse, but has a more elongated muzzle with an elongated proboscis. Her coat is soft, fluffy, velvet, gray. The ears on the head are practically absent, and the eyes are very small and blind.

In length, the shrew reaches from eighteen to twenty centimeters and has a very long tail. The baby's weight is not more than fifteen grams.

Predatory animals such as foxes, dogs and domestic cats sometimes catch and strangle shrews, taking them for mice, but do not eat, because thanks to the musk gland, the animal emits a strong unpleasant odor, which discourages any appetite from its pursuers.

Like all its closest relatives, such as hedgehogs and moles, the shrew belongs to the order of insectivorous animals and, like most rodents, lives in burrows, eating mainly animal food. Prowling underground in search of food and using the moves left by mice and other rodents, shrews devour insects, worms, larvae, and other small animals.

Since the shrew has a powerful metabolism and cannot go without food for a long time (no more than seven to nine hours in a row), it has to constantly get food and eat more food during the day than it weighs.

The most common are two types of shrews:

• Shrews (lat.Crocidura)
• Shrews (lat.Sorex)

As the name of the little animals implies, in some the tips of the teeth are painted white, while in others they are brown. In addition, shrews are usually much smaller.

Since the shrew is a predator, it is beneficial in that it destroys the larvae of harmful insects that live underground. In addition, these animals perfectly loosen the soil, saturating it with oxygen and thus producing aeration of the soil.

Mole

The mole (lat. Talpa europaea) is a close relative of the shrew. It has powerful front legs, well suited for digging the earth, a muzzle with a maneuverable trunk and a short tail. In length, the animal reaches twenty centimeters.

Like the shrew, the mole is an underground inhabitant, building up an intricate system of passages, and appears on the surface only in an emergency. The mole throws out all the excess land that is formed by the device of moves. These land heaps in the form of small tubercles are popularly called molehills and are a clear sign that the mole has settled in this territory.

Like a shrew, a mole is a predatory animal, consuming large amounts of earth and earthworms, actively eating larvae of khrushchas, butterflies, beetles and other harmful insects, thereby bringing invaluable help to gardeners and summer residents.

Mole rat

Well, here, finally, we got to the true pest, since it is the mole rat that is the thunderstorm of vegetable gardens and summer cottages, completely atrocious and outrageous.

To the mole rat, the animal food, which its relatives eat, is strictly contraindicated.

Like all of the “relatives” of the mole rat above, he painstakingly digs passages and burrows and leads an exclusively underground lifestyle, leaving the shelter only once in his life - at the moment when he leaves his father's house in his teens to start an independent adult life.

Like a mole, it is possible to detect in the mole rat area by the mounds formed on the surface, resembling small earthen slides.

In addition to the common mole rat, there are several more species of this rodent: "sandy", "Pontic", "Bukovinian" and "Podolsky", all of these species (with the exception of the common one) are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine.

It is noteworthy that the halo of habitat of the common mole rat is limited only by the left-bank Ukraine, since, apparently, the Dnieper River is an insurmountable obstacle for the animal.

The mole rat, unlike its brethren, is a herbivorous animal and feeds on the underground parts of plants. In wild natural conditions, the pest consumes mainly bulb crops, acorns and eats seedlings of oaks, maples, other deciduous trees, and getting into the garden becomes a real disaster, because it destroys root crops, bulbs and tubers of cultivated plants.

As mentioned above, this species of rodents, due to their secretive habitat, is still poorly understood and holds many secrets.

In appearance, the mole rat has a rather lumpy body, resembling an outwardly voluminous cylinder up to twenty-five centimeters in length. The head of a rodent has a flattened shape. The main digging tool of the mole rat is huge sharp incisors sticking out. In place of the eyes is a wide fold of skin, completely covered with bristles. The skin of the animal is yellowish-brown in color.

An interesting fact is that the fleas that live on the animal have also assimilated safely and, like their owner, are completely blind.

It is well known that mole rats create a substantial supply of products, storing them for a long winter period.For example, in the pantry of a prudent and hardworking animal, eighteen (!) Kilograms of potato were discovered.

Nevertheless, scientists have determined that the daily rate of consumption of plant foods in mole rats is equal to its own weight (and this is about half a kilogram of weight), that is, with such a rate, the use of these products for the whole winter is clearly not enough. It is possible that the animal runs into a state of suspended animation during the period of the deaf-mute, which is why the metabolic process slows down and the mole rat only feeds from time to time.

In the upper tier, the animal eats (since its main food base is located at this depth), and in the lower tier the mole rat builds nests, creates its pantry stocks and establishes latrines. It is noteworthy that the lower "floors" can go to a depth of four (!) Meters, but basically do not exceed eighty centimeters.

Building its own tunnels, the animal loses a lot of energy, so it adapted to overcome obstacles and heavy tracts of land using the technique of creating small earthquakes, for which it strikes with its head, and then evaluates the reflection of seismic waves.

This method allows the mole rat to break through the course with less labor, since it was estimated that the total length of the holes of one animal can reach three hundred sixty (!) Meters in length.

The mole rat is essentially a hermit, but in March starts looking for a mate, and already in April, offspring appear in the newly-born family, consisting of two or more (up to six) cubs, which the mother feeds with milk.

Pest Management Methods

Pest control methods can be divided into two main groups:

It has long been observed that moles and mole rats do not like the strong smells of some plants, and in particular they do not accept the harsh spirit of mint and wormwood. The imperial hazel grouse is also scared away by the emperor grouse, whose bulb emits a strong smell that repels animals.

Practice has shown that if several rows of parsnip are planted in the rodent's habitat (it is necessary to find a plant species that has a long root), then the mole rat will leave this site. Black elderberry and medicinal black root repel pests well.

There are also various types of repellers that make sounds and produce vibrations. For this purpose, on a personal plot, it is necessary to hammer wooden stakes into the ground, into which an ordinary impeller is inserted from above.

When the wind blows, the impeller rotates and creates a hum and vibration, which the mole rats clearly do not like. For the same purpose, tin cans of beer or cola, cut in a special way, can be planted on wooden pegs, which, when rotated, create a similar effect.

Some gardeners and gardeners on the perimeter of the site bury a metal mesh (netting) and thus are protected from uninvited guests. The only difficulty is that you have to bury the grid quite deeply (up to a meter in depth), taking into account the depth of the possible burrows of the lower tier.

The chemical method of control is the simplest, but it is fraught with serious consequences, since domestic animals and even people can suffer from the strongest poisons that belong to the phosphite group (the poison negatively affects all warm-blooded organisms).

Therefore, before applying chemistry, it is necessary to test safer and less harmful methods for the outside world, because the use of poisons can eventually turn into a tragedy.

The mole rat, as a rule, leads a hidden and solitary lifestyle, therefore, having driven away or exterminated the animal from the site, you can finally take a deep breath.

Moles (mole rats), shrews, the fight against moles in the country, traps

In summer cottages, mole rats, shrews and moles live in large numbers. However, not all of them bring harm and it is necessary to fight them, we will also get to know the useful “underground inhabitants”.

Shrews

Very rarely you can meet them and consider - they do not like to show themselves to their eyes, although they are active around the clock. Unless you leave early in the morning in the yard, and on the grass - the fruits of the night hunt of a tireless cat. Take a closer look at the animal.

It does not look like a mouse at all, its muzzle is stretched out into the proboscis, its ears are almost invisible, its eyes are tiny, the fur is velvety. And the cat didn’t eat the animal because it smells very bad, the blame for this is the musky gland, which many species have.

Meet this shrew, the closest relative of the beloved hedgehog. And shrews, and hedgehogs, and moles belong to the order Insectivores (Sorisiformes). Like rodents, they live in burrows, although they prefer to use the moves left by rodents. The basis of their diet is animal food.

In addition to other differences, the tips of the teeth are brown in shrews, the teeth are white in shrews and their body length is 6-8 cm. These crumbs are very useful because they loosen and thereby oxygenate (aerate) the soil, and also destroy the larvae of harmful insects .

Moles

Their close relative, the mole (Talpa europaea), has velvety black fur, powerful digging front legs, a short tail and the same muzzle with a movable proboscis, and its body length reaches 20 cm. Mole rats are often incorrectly called moles.

What they have in common with mole rats is that, like a mole rat, the mole is an underground inhabitant and builds a complex system of underground passages that it leaves only in an emergency. When the passages have to be laid deep and in dense soil, then excess land through temporary passages is thrown to the surface in the form of small heaps, the so-called molehills.

From these heaps one can understand that the mole lives here: molehills are smaller in size than the emissions of mole rats, and the mole does not settle in the gardens. But in the lowlands, in the humid areas of the garden, it can also settle.

The mole rat is related to the mole only by the manner of throwing out the earth while digging holes and an exclusively underground way of life. You can see it extremely rarely, he leaves his underground galleries once, leaving at a young age from his native nest.

The appearance of the mole rat is very unusual, the shape of the body resembles a plump cylinder, the geometric perfection of which is not disturbed either by the ears or the tail, since they are underdeveloped. The large head of the mole rat is flattened in the form of a wedge.

He is completely blind, in place of his eyes a thick fold of skin has formed, densely covered with bristly hair, even the fleas that live on him are also blind.The body of the animal is covered with a thick silky buffy-brown fur, in which there is no usual downhole and core hair; hard hairs protruding from the fur are organs of touch.

The legs of the mole rat are short and weak, they do not take part in digging, the main digging tool is huge incisors sticking out. The lips are equipped with folds that cover the mouth so that the earth does not get there during the underground robot. The body length of the mole rat is 20-25 cm.

In addition to the common mole rat, there are four more species - sand mole rat, Pontic mole rat, Bukovinian mole rat and Podolsky mole rat. All of them, except the common mole rat, are listed in the Red Book.

Scientists researching these rodents note that the number of common mole rats in the west and north is declining. We also note that the common mole rat lives only on the Left-Bank Ukraine, the Dnieper for him is an insurmountable barrier.

What do they eat?

In the wild, mole rats feed on all kinds of green and underground parts of plants; in case of case, planted acorns, seedlings and young seedlings of oak, maple and other hardwood species eat in bulk, an important part of their diet is bulbous.

At first glance, the mass of prepared food is impressive: 15-18 kg of potatoes in one pantry, in other pantries - up to 14 kg of tree roots and sprouted acorns.

But if in the warm season the animal eats feed mass approximately equal to body weight per day, and this is about 500 g, it becomes clear that these reserves are not enough for the whole winter, apparently in the cold season they slow down their metabolism and food less consumed.

Burrows of moles of mole rats

Burrows of mole rats are arranged in two tiers: a complex system of horizontal feed passages is laid at a depth of 10-25 cm. It is in this soil layer that the underground organs of plants are located, which animals feed on as they move.

When it becomes difficult to push out portions of the earth, the mole rat clogs the snout with earth and, at the end of the turn, paves a new one and throws out a new pile of earth. The total length of the moves of one mole rat reaches 275-360 m.

Late autumn, the second construction season begins, which is not visible to us living on the surface - mole rats expand and improve the passages and chambers of the lower tier, and the earth is not thrown to the surface, but the upper fodder passages clog it.

Making moves and searching for food, they lose a lot of energy, for this reason mole rats, trying to get to the roots and overcoming obstacles in their path, use the technology of small earthquakes.

They behave underground as seismological specialists, striking their heads against the ceilings of the corridors dug by them, creating micro-earthquakes and, evaluating the reflection power of seismological waves, dig tunnels that are convenient for them with less energy.

Parent chores

Continuing the topic of seismology, we add that they communicate with each other, tapping their heads on the ceiling of the course.

Just imagine - the beginning of spring, still cold and hungry, but not blind, apparently, the main fodder reserves are preserved by this time.Mole rats give only one offspring a year, and they begin to breed at a very respectable two or three year old age, compare with mice and voles!

The value of mole rats and moles and their burrowing activity

In places of mass exposure to mole rats as a result of digging, mixing plants with soil, sprinkling of plant substrate, enriching the soil with animal excretions, the thickness of the humus horizon increases.

Its lower boundary drops by 10-20 cm, the humus composition improves, that is, the process of soil formation becomes more intense. In addition, the seeds of many plants germinate on land emissions, which cannot be sprouted on undisturbed plots of land, and thus the species diversity of plants increases.

Not only for plants, but also for animals, the digging activity of mole rats is very useful - a variety of rodents settle in the snouts, and the passages are inhabited by predators: affection, ferrets.

Such they are our extraordinary mole rats. That's just, settling in the garden, a lot of damage is done to our crop.

Mole Control Methods

We will divide the methods of protecting garden plots from mole rats into frightening and exterminating ones.

Intimidating measures. Among the scaring methods, the most popular are sound repellers and planting certain types of plants.

The fight against moles folk remedies. Moles do not like the smell of mint, wormwood. Young trees of the most valuable varieties can be sprayed with peppermint oil. Plant imperial grouse on a summer cottage. The bulbs of this plant emit a rodent-repelling odor.

Near the holes, you can lay out repelling black root plants, branches and leaves of black elderberry. These measures help against all rodents. One can only add that the mole rat does not tolerate the presence of the parsnip. If you plant a parsnip in the 2-3 rows along the perimeter of the garden, namely long-root varieties, the mole rat will leave this site.

Do it yourself with moles. There are many designs of sound home-made repellers. For example, wooden pegs are placed on the site, and an impeller is attached to them from the breeze. They beat the impeller not too tightly to the peg, so that with the slightest blow of the breeze, it immediately starts spinning. This creates a hum in the ground, which the mole rats really dislike.

It is advisable to dig in the bottles, taking into account the direction of the prevailing winds, so that the winds as often as possible create noise in the bottles. Empty metal cans of beer are planted on wooden pegs, the effect is similar.

Collections of ornamental plants can be protected by planting bulbs, for example, in plastic bottles in which holes are pre-pierced. You can also enclose the flower garden with a metal mesh, which must be dug into the ground at least 80 cm, that is, you need to dig in deeper than the aft moves, taking into account the lower tier of the moves.

How to destroy moles. Nevertheless, the most effective method is the mechanical extermination of rodents. I will not write in detail about chemical methods - I am their decisive opponent. Since the approved chemicals belong to the group of phosphides.

Among the mechanical methods of capture there are several options.If your site is located near the village, it is easier to contact its residents. As a rule, at least one experienced craftsman who cleverly sets special traps is sure to be found. In addition, some summer residents are lucky - they have a tireless hunter cat or a gambling hunting dog.

Many pets successfully catch mole rats in areas. But if you do not have a skilled neighbor and your pets do not have the desire to save the landlord's garden, you will have to get down to business.

So, we already know the construction of the mole rat hole and therefore, armed with a trap and knowledge, we get down to business. First you need to find the freshest ejection of land, which means that the mole rat is digging somewhere nearby. By the way, a dog can help here, if you have one, it will immediately let you know whether or not to dig up a fresh, in your opinion, mound.

Then, having discarded a heap of earth, you should dig a hole, approximately 40 x 40 cm, in the recess (ejections of earth are formed here). Here you will find the main passage in which you need to clear both holes. The mole rat does not like drafts and in about 20 minutes it will score the passage from which it digs the course.

Well, you, having found the passage where the animal digs, destroy the soil cork and, having retreated about 5 cm in depth from the beginning of the passage, put the trap on the mole rat. He will return to the beginning of the turn to close it and will inevitably fall into the set trap.

A mole rat is a territorial animal that leads a solitary lifestyle, therefore, having driven away or having destroyed an animal on a site, you can live quietly for some time.

The smallest mammal on Earth

Since ancient times, the owners of agricultural land have developed a bad relationship with a shrew. Previously, the epithets “dangerous”, “aggressive”, and even “poisonous” were applicable to it. Over the years, people have managed to reconsider their attitude to the small animal and learn how to benefit from the neighborhood with it.

What kind of animal?

Often, a shrew is identified with a mouse due to the outward similarity of these far from closely related animals. After reviewing their position in the animal kingdom, scientists attributed these individuals to the shrew-like order, earlier they were considered insectivores. Mice are representatives of the order of rodents and have little in common with insectivores.

A giant shrew is considered to be a giant among shrews, reaching a length of 12 cm. You can learn more about these animals in the article on the types of shrews.

Shrews are the most common subfamily of tiny underground insectivores, including many species: ordinary (forest), dwarf, tiny, house, water, elephant. An article on common shrew species, in addition to interesting information, contains many photos of our little neighbors.

Appearance and structure

The shrew looks like a mouse in appearance: a small head with tiny eyes, a short neck, a little body set low on thin legs, a long tail. The size of the animal is also “mouse” - its length rarely exceeds 10 cm. The entire body of the shrew is covered with short thick brown hair.

Sharp vision during the evolution of shrews has lost. They orient themselves with the help of smell, using a nose located at the end of an elongated pointed muzzle as a compass navigator. Widely spaced ears pressed to the head are necessary for the animal to echolocation.

The ends of the sharp teeth of the animal are covered with a strong brown protective enamel, which is grind off by the end of the life of the shrew. It is not surprising, because most of its short life a small animal leads for a meal.

You can see how the shrew looks in the photo below:

Food

Shrews eat an incredible amount of insect pests: beetles, a bear, caterpillars, wireworms, wood lice, living underground. An animal can destroy hundreds of grams of insects per day, which is 4 times the weight of the little workaholic herself.

Animals are not far-sighted: they often plunder their food supplies for the winter in the warm season. Unable to withstand prolonged winter hunger, they die. You can find out more interesting in the section on the nutrition of amazing animals.

Breeding

For its short life, the shrew leaves up to 6 litters. At one time, 3 to 10 tiny blind babies are born.

Is a shrew a mammal or not? No doubt the answer is yes, because a caring mother carefully feeds her babies with milk, gradually transferring them to an adult diet.

How many shrews live? Animals become completely independent by the end of the 3rd week, which is not surprising, because the maximum life span of a shrew is only 1.5 years.

Shrews have long ceased to be unknown and mysterious to humans, but disputes about the benefits and harms of small insectivores are still ongoing.

Moles and shrews: folk remedies

It would seem that moles and shrews should be of great benefit to people. After all, digging deep passages, they perfectly loosen the soil on the site. These small mammals feed on such harmful insects as wireworm, bear, etc., which saves the garden from the invasion of this "evil."

Sometimes they can completely fall underground. Moreover, in addition to harmful insects, these animals also eat earthworms, which help to loosen the soil, thereby bringing great benefits.

The fact that moles and shrews dig in the beds is not the only problem. In the process, they throw heaps of earth to the surface, and regularly appear in the most inappropriate and unexpected places: in beds, flower beds, lawns, etc.

While you will be engaged in the restoration of spoiled and compacted dug ground, they will dig in the other direction, and dump the next pile just a few meters from the previous one. All this can lead to the fact that the owners of sites that suffered such a failure, will begin to seriously think about how to get rid of underground pests.

Who are they?

A mole is a predatory mammal. Its size, as a rule, does not exceed 15 cm, plus 2-4 cm - the length of the tail. It weighs 70-140 g. It has an elongated head, and an elongated, like a trunk, muzzle, covered with soft wool.

The front legs are quite wide, fins-like, have palms facing not inward, as in most animals, but outward. There are large claws on the paws. The eyes are very small, equipped with eyelids, and completely covered by hair. The hearing organs are also small, without auricles, surrounded by leathery protrusions, and also completely covered with wool.

The growth of hair goes perpendicular to the body (and not in one direction, as in most mammals), which allows the mole to conveniently move along the underground passages, both forward and backward - the wool easily lies in both directions.

The mole has a very sharp sense of touch and smell. By the way, unlike a common misconception, the mole sees it quite normally. In addition, the mole has an excellent hearing, on which the methods of scaring away these animals are based. Their average life expectancy is 5-6 years.

A shrew is a small mammal that looks like a mouse, but with an elongated muzzle. The length of her body is 3-4 cm, it weighs about 3-5 g. Their head is quite large, with an elongated facial section. The nose is like a proboscis. The organs of vision are small, front and hind limbs are quite short. The fur is thick, short, velvety. The tail can be both short and long, sometimes exceeding the length of the body.

Teeth - 26-32. The front lower incisors are greatly enlarged. The change of primary teeth to molars occurs in the process of embryonic development, so the animal is born with a complete set of teeth.

Folk remedies for moles and shrews

You can use bottle trills. For this, an empty glass bottle from under any drink is instilled into the ground in a well-blown place, at an angle of 45 degrees, relative to the surface of the earth. The sound of the wind in empty bottles will scare away these underground pests.

Around the plantings and at the ends of the beds you can bury rags that will be well moistened with tar, gasoline or kerosene. The most reliable remedy against moles and shrews is to get a dog. After that, your garden will be permanently rid of these pests.

You can get rid of the invasion of moles and shrews using a very unusual way: we spread rotten fish on the territory of the garden (including burrows). These animals have a well-developed sense of smell, so they can not stand such harsh odors.

Moles dislike bean crops. In its moves, you can lay out the torn green beans (side shoots, tops). Such a plant can be used to plant the entire plot, but not very densely, approximately at a distance of 70-80 cm from each other. They can also be planted along the border of the site, in order to prevent.

A very effective tool for combating moles is hemp. It needs to be put in freshly dug moves. Rotting, hemp gives off a specific smell that these animals really dislike, and they leave the garden. This tool is valid for 2-3 years.

To combat moles and shrews, you can use plants that give off a pungent odor (onions, garlic, peppers, etc.). However, in relation to moles, the effectiveness of such a method is very doubtful, most likely, he simply will not use this move and build a new one. And for shrews, this method will be effective.

During windy weather, the reeds create the effect of “howling wind in the chimney”, and in some strange way can affect moles. Some who have used this method claim that moles disappear almost a week later. In any case, you can try.

A fairly reliable, but very costly means is to dig up to a depth of 30-40 cm sheets of tin, slate, linoleum and the like barrage materials.The method is very time-consuming, for example, if you take a site equal to 6 hundred parts, the length of its perimeter will be approximately 100 m. It will take a lot of effort and time to dig a hundred-meter trench, up to 40 cm deep.

Among the popular ways of fighting moles, there is also such as flooding their tunnels. The effectiveness of this method is not too high. Firstly, you need a lot of water (at least 100-150 liters per mole) to try to flood all the moves. One bucket of water will only attract earthworms, which are their food, so on the contrary, you will only double the problem.

None of the means can give absolute effectiveness, but it's still worth a try.

The fight against moles and shrews

The most common methods of combating moles and shrews are poisoned baits, mole traps and repellers.

With poisoned lures

Since moles are insectivores, eating mainly earthworms and insects, toxic baits are not immediately consumed by animals.

Close the hole with a lump of soil, pressing it with a heel so that the soil does not cover the bait. Perform this operation four times in different places and wait for the result. Remember - the mole must find the bait in its maze and eat it.

Using molehills

Mole traps - one of the most effective means to combat a small number of moles and shrews. But many do not know how to use them correctly. The most important thing is to choose a place for them.

It is useless to set a trap in the heap of earth that the mole dug. You need to go around your site around the perimeter, determine the place where it came from (from the forest or from a neighboring site). Here, the land above the course is slightly elevated by a hemisphere. And on this border you have to catch him. Smash the ground so that it does not crumble. Carefully open the soil.

Charge the two molehills and insert them into the tunnel to about the middle. Why do you need two traps? After all, it is not known which side the mole will go through the tunnel. Therefore, one mole trap should be placed with the inlet in one direction, the second in the opposite. Cover with a board from above.

Please note that the entry ring of the mole catcher must be closed. Some firms make mole traps with an open ring. A mole can escape from such a mole catcher and then it will be practically impossible to catch it.

Using repellers

Mole and shrew repellers are divided into electronic, electro-mechanical and mechanical.

These sound vibrations cause moles and shrews to dig the earth farther and farther away from the sound source. And gradually the animals move beyond the boundaries of the protected zone.

Mechanical repellers are a variety of home-made devices that emit certain sounds.

One of such simple devices for combating moles and shrews is a spinner made of a plastic bottle. To make it, you will need a piece of a regular water pipe and a plastic bottle. Pieces of pipes are driven into the ground so that their lower end is deeper than the level of the animal’s moves.

Slots are made on the bottle along the solid line, and on the dotted line, plastic is bent. There should be 4 such bends. At the slightest breath of wind, the bottle rotates, the hollow tube resonates and creates a noise that the animals fear.

Using toxic gases

Poisonous gases, known on the market as “gas bombs,” are effective in fighting moles. However, it is not recommended to use these gases for an extensive network of tunnels, since the mole usually quickly and tightly closes the gasified section and continues on its way to new territories, expanding the tunnels.

With flooding and fumigants

Filling holes with water from a garden hose is rarely an effective measure. If you do not quickly fill the entire system of holes, which is rarely possible, you can only stimulate the activity of the mole, which will begin to break through tunnels in other parts of the site.

The use of insecticides or soil fumigants to reduce the number of earthworms and insects living in the soil can only cause moles to move to neighboring areas with plentiful food. Partial removal of earthworms can intensify mole digging tunnels in search of food.

With a gun or shovel

Some U.S. farmers have found that the 12-caliber rifle is the most effective, legal, and safe mole control product. Dredge fields or pastures to level old mole heaps.

When movement is observed in the newly formed molehill, a well-aimed shot from close range stops it. The mole is either killed, or he dies from shell shock. A strong hit with a shovel on a long handle, aimed at a moving pile, can sometimes lead to the same result.

Using smart devices

Almost everyone has heard of a reliable pest control agent, especially moles. These include broken bottles, frosted glass, razor blades, twigs, bleach, various petroleum products, mothballs, sheep parasite solution, ordinary liquor, and even human hair placed in a hole.

Another imaginary panacea is the so-called "mole plant" or the official euphorbia - Euphorbia latyris. Such plants, planted all over the lawn or on flower beds, can serve as living repellents. However, it has been scientifically proven that none of these approaches is effective.

Unfortunately, there is no key that you can use to start the fight against moles. Its success is associated with knowledge of the behavior of moles and the results of a long and persistent application of effective methods and materials. Mole traps, repellers and poisonous baits are the three most effective methods of combating moles and shrews.

Once you have determined the harm, you will want to examine the entire territory in order to free it from the pest again. It is recognized that this is not difficult to do, because traces of mole activity appear on the surface - piles of loose earth and mole moves at the surface. Start the fight against moles and shrews as soon as molehills appear on the surface of the earth.