MOLES, VOLES & GOPHERS: Traps? Poisons? or Repellents? Explained by Biologist, Charles J. Malki

Hi, I'm Charles Malky, biologist and plant expert with Ivory Organics 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint, and today we're going to be talking about moles, voles, and gophers, and we're going to be discussing how to actually get the problem under control in your gardens. As they dig tunnels and can actually damage your lawns, damage your vegetable gardens, can actually damage your established trees as well. And the ways we're going to learn how to actually get the problems under control is one of them is going to be discussing how to repel them, another one's going to discuss how to trap them, and the third one is going to be discussing poisons as well. I'm actually putting this all out there. I'm not necessarily giving my personal opinion to too much of this, but I'm just letting you know that there are three options, and I want this video to be an educational video in regards to what are your options when you're actually faced with a mole, vole, or a gopher on your property. The first thing I want to discuss are the traps, and the reasons I want to also share the benefits of actually trapping the animals and not poisoning them is you're actually catching the animal that you're actually trying to get under control, and this here is a product that's actually designed by Sweeney's here. It's basically a metal trap, and it's actually coated with some green vinyl plastic, and the way these traps work, and I'm going to show you and demonstrate here as well, is you basically want to make sure that this lever is in this position here. You're basically going to swing it underneath, and then you want to press this down and hook it, and the trick is to make sure that that hook from behind it is actually catching the top lever, and then this one little part is going to hook onto that plate right here, and that's supposed to set the plate. I've actually been experimenting with this last night. I got it half the time, and it looks like for this video, I'm not going to get it, but it would pretty much work in that fashion. So this here is the Sweeney product. Between the two similarly designed products, here's the second one. This one here is designed by Victor. If you notice with the Sweeney product, it's got one metal lever. This one here has two, and instead of actually getting it into one little hole, this actually holds underneath the entire plate. I find this contraption to be a little bit easier to use, so this here is going to press down. This lever swings now from behind, and then it basically goes right underneath the trap, and that'll go like so. The way this contraption actually works and what you're doing is, if you actually stick this into the mole, actually this here is a gopher trap. It's all just a matter of size. For a mole, it would actually be a smaller contraption, so this here is for the gopher size. If you put this into the mole hole, actually the gopher hole, the gopher is going to walk over these two spikes, and as it comes across this plate, it'll hit it, and then these two will snap right into the body of the gopher, and that's how basically this works. A couple other ideas, and I've seen these actually used in the tunnels as well. This here is designed by Ortho, and it's got these jaws. You can actually bait it, and we're talking about the different foods that these animals prefer, so you can kind of bait them accordingly, but this here is an Ortho trap, and you can see here that it's got this trip lever. You actually put the food right here in this hole that's designed near the bottom, and when the animal touches this red plate, it actually closes. This here is designed predominantly for mice. A larger one would be for a rat, but I've seen these actually successfully used to actually catch moles and bulls if this can fit within their tunnels. So here's another contraption. I'm going to let that go. A third trap, again another Victor mouse trap idea, similar design. You actually pull this lever back. You take the metal lever here and basically hook it, and you can actually bait it. You first bait it before you actually set the trap. Right here on the tip, when it actually touches the bait, it releases the trap, and this will swing right over, usually on the animal's head. So here's a third trap idea as well. So in regards to the trap ideas, I think I've covered what I've...actually there's one more trap idea I've brought here as well. So this one here is designed by Gonzo. It's called Dead End Gopher Trap, and the way this trap works, this one's really easy to set. Pretty cool for gophers, but there is one negative that I've observed with this. So what's going to happen, you'll notice that there's an opening here where the gopher is going to come in, and then there's this tiny hole in the back, which is supposed to be, I guess, the gopher seeing the light, and I was told that usually you'd want to cover this all with dirt once it's in the ground. But what happens is you basically just press this down, and you can see this noose that comes out, and you're basically using this wire over here. So this lever basically is going to catch onto the back here. So on the back, there's a plastic part that comes out as you press down, and you're going to want to carefully hook that into position, and that's done. That's actually a set trap. So you can see, and there, it just went off as well. Very sensitive. What happens is that noose that was sticking out, when the gopher actually goes in the hole, it would actually catch the gopher and basically pull it towards the roof, and it actually holds it in place there. And this springs constrict on it, leading to its quick death. The negative I find about this is when you actually put it into the gopher hole, the holes actually sometimes travel both ways. So if you've got it actually in the gopher hole, and you've got it positioned this way, the gopher will get in, but if you've actually got it the wrong way, the gopher can't get in on the side. So you've got to know the direction of the hole in order for this product to work. So that was the one negative I found with this, but a pretty cool gopher trap otherwise. So that pretty much deals with traps. In regards to traps and the ones we've discussed, ideal for gophers, and they're actually one of the cheapest products, is this here by Victor Easy Set. So if your goal is to trap it, this would be the way. The next thing I wanted to discuss now is poison. And I'm sharing this again to educate the viewers, but I'm not in favor of putting poison in places where it could be accessible to your pets, it could be accessible to other predators in your area. I'm actually here in Los Angeles doing this video, and I know in this area we've got this mountain lion by the name of P22 that roams around this area. We've got coyotes, we've got hawks, we've got so many other predators. Unfortunately they're not in large numbers, but we've got these predators that if these creatures that are poisoned actually get into the wild and consumed, it'll actually destroy the natural life cycle that we've got surrounding us. We do live in their habitat and we do need to respect and protect it, and as a community, in order for this to be effective. But I do want to share what these products are, and I'm going to tell you also the negatives in addition to preserving our wildlife with some of these products as well. So this here is one product made by Sweeney's called Poisoned Peanut Pellets. So this here, I'm actually going to open it up here, and I've got my gloves on. I never handle poison without gloves. But you can see here, my gloves are black and these pellets are black, but it basically looks like rabbit food. These little pellets, you would actually open the holes, dump about a tablespoon or so, read the directions into the hole. The gophers and the moles will actually consume it and it will poison them and kill them. There's another one here made by Omdro, another mole and gopher bait as well. Similar to this, it's got the pellets. This one here designed by Sweeney's got this conical shape. The idea being that you can actually push it into the hole and basically make an entryway for actually inserting the poison. And that's reason for this design by Sweeney's. Another poison that I've brought with me is this here, and this is made by J.T. Eaton. And these are like really large bars. And this here is basically four bars, one, two, three, and four bars that you would actually open the gopher hole and put these poison blocks into the tunnels and the gophers will come across them and consume it and eat it. So this is another poison. And a third one I brought with me is this Tomcat Mole Killer product as well. And this here, if you want to zoom in, you can actually see it's basically got a worm, kind of like a glow in the dark worm that you would actually insert into the tunnel. And the moles will consume it. And again, it's got poison inside the worm. Poison is the animal, again, hopefully it doesn't get into the wild. Hopefully your pets don't get a hold of it. But the risk with these poisonous products is, again, we're trying to protect the wildlife around us, protect your pets, protect the family. More, I don't say more importantly, but equally important as well, being my garden is actually all about food. And if I'm actually putting these poisonous products into my garden, there is risk with pretty much all of these products that I've read before doing this video, that pretty much encourages you to use them like in your lawn and into a non-edible setting. So be very careful putting poison into your gardens as you don't want these poisons to actually end up on your table and in your food. So again, another warning when it comes to using poisons in your gardens, be very careful to make sure it's not anywhere near your fruit trees and your vegetable garden as well. So we've talked about trapping your animals, we've talked about poisoning the animals, and the next one we're going to talk about is repelling them. And this here is a pretty creative product designed by Sweeney's as well, it's called Mole Gopher Repellent. The active ingredient in this product is a castor oil. And what the castor oil does is it basically gets into the soil, you're supposed to water it in, and they actually recommend doing four different zones. So you'll basically do one zone and castor this granular product over your lawn, and then water it down. The negative with this product is it requires that you water it for 20 minutes. And you're doing these cycles every single day. So 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes for four days. And the more you water, the more this product gets into the soil and makes everything as you know, I've never tasted castor oil before, but apparently it's got a horrendously bad taste. That basically tells the gophers to get out of here and go somewhere else where the food actually tastes better. So that's what castor oil does. There's other products out there made by other people that use pepper or a blood meal, just other organic ways also to actually make the soil taste bad for those animals that are consuming anything out of out of that area. So we talked about this one idea of being a repellent. I'm putting this gas here under my topic of repellent as well, even though this ultimately, if it works right, will kill the animal. But this here is pretty much like a smoke bomb. You light the fuse and stick it in the tunnel with the fuse end of it going into the tunnel first. And then you basically cap one end of the tunnel that you've inserted it. And you're basically trying to force the smoke into the tunnel. This here is made by Omdro as well. And it says for gophers, kills gophers, moles and other illicit pests. So you basically stick in a tunnel, smokes them out. And again, depending on the extent of these tunnels, the reason I'm doing this video is I've had no issues in my garden for almost a year. And my daughter actually said, Dad, it seems like every year we're doing this. And it seems like it is every single spring, we're battling with whether it's a mole or a bull. Gophers, we don't have too many issues here as our property is walled off on all sides. But a mole or two end up in our garden every single year from who knows where, but they always make it in probably obviously tunneling under one of the neighbor's walls. So we discussed pretty much all of these products. I've got one more, actually a couple more ideas I want to share with you. This here is a Tomcat product. And the way this here works is you basically bait these cartridges. I've got some bait here, I can actually show you how this works. So this one here says kills rats and mice. So you're dealing with this product, if you're only dealing with something that's above the ground. So it's not necessarily moles and bulls. But I wanted to share like, here's another product that could possibly work if you put it into their tunnels. So the bait actually will come through, push that in. So the bait ends up here, the animal comes through its door will walk around. And the reason for this contraption is to basically protect your pets from accessing the poison that's on this side. And then you just basically close it. So now the poison is actually you can see through the window on this side, your rat and mice will come through and eat it. Again, the risk with poisons as we discussed earlier is protecting the wildlife around us. But this is another way to actually control a poison. You'll sometimes see this around restaurants and shopping centers as an effective way to control rats and mice. We're gonna set this down. And another contraption I have here is this. And this here is made by Diggers, and it's called Root Guard Gopher Wire Basket. And it comes in various sizes, you may have heard about people that actually build these sometimes out of chicken wire. This product says it's the right diameter for these holes to actually keep gophers from getting to your protected trees. And the way it works is you basically pull the chicken wire apart. And then they want you to actually press your fingers along the seams. So we're going to basically press against it to force it into a cylinder. So we're going to open that up, fold the bottom. And now what we've created is a basket here out of wire. I don't know if you can see this in the video, but the top couple of inches are painted green. They want the whole green portion to actually be above ground so that the gopher doesn't hop or get into the root area that we're trying to protect. So you can actually have this plant that's in here with a couple of inches of wire sticking above the ground. And then you're basically protecting this area. I'm not a big fan of these. As you can imagine, here's a lemon tree that I'm actually putting in. This lemon tree will grow. It's a semi-dwarf, so it'll grow about 10 feet. But I don't like the idea that... And it's going to be kind of like this. So the soil level is going to be here. Here's the green part that's above the ground. So you're always going to have some chicken wire actually exposed. And the roots are going to be forced to go through these holes. For this particular tree, it might be okay. But let's say, for example, a big tree where the roots get a lot thicker, the roots are going to be these holes. So a disadvantage of this product. But again, if you've got a severe mole or vole or gopher problem, this might be the solution for you. So I'm going to set this down as well. And I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what moles and voles and gophers actually eat. I'm trying to make this a comprehensive video where we discuss everything. I'm going to also give you some examples of what's going on in my garden today. So moles. The main food source is actually earthworms and grubs. Gophers eat predominantly plants. We're talking about plant roots, carrots, tubers such as potatoes, and seeds. So basically, they're plant-eating animals. So when it comes to protecting your garden, that's a huge concern, especially with your vegetable gardens. And then the vole. Unlike the mole that actually is eating earthworms and grubs, the vole actually eats predominantly plants. We're talking about grasses, bulbs, tubers. And I've actually lost a tree last year to a vole that actually ate the tree bark and roots towards the bottom of the tree. It pretty much girdled, ate its way all the way around the tree. And this is an issue that usually plagues farmers in the winter, when the animals are starving for insects that are no longer in the soil. And again, voles being that they're eating predominantly plants and there aren't as many plants in my garden in the winter as there is spring and summer. They actually then attack the trees. So the reason I actually got this idea of organics on the table is as we take a look at some of the trees, you'll notice all the trees in my garden are now protected with this product. And it will basically, it also has just as this product, castor oil, and that's one of the main ingredients in there for actually making the plant actually taste bad and not be something that the vole is going to want to consume. So it could take a bite, but hopefully it tastes bad enough that it's not going to girdle its way all the way around the tree and actually kill my tree as it did last year when it was unprotected. So make sure all of your trees are protected with Ivory Organics 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint. And now I'm going to show you what one of these vole tunnels looks like and then we'll show you how to correct the problem. So follow me. So here we are in one part of the garden. I've lined the string alongside of what a typical vole and actually mole tunnel will look like. And you can see the crack along the surface. And this here is a place that you can follow with where this animal is actually crawling underneath the garden. But the main issue with actually getting these animals out of your garden is all of these holes in your area actually detract and take water away from your plants. When you turn on your sprinklers or if you've got a drip system, it'll actually find its way into these tunnels and actually divert the water away from your plants. I'm going to actually show you a couple more examples if you follow me over here next. So here we are next to our fig tree. As you can see here, it's got some pretty cool fruit. As you can see, indicated by every single leaf, it's actually supporting a fruit. So that same mole or vole that found its way into my garden is actually tunneled at least 30 to 40 feet from the last space spot that we're at. And if you zoom in here, you can actually see what these tunnels are doing. I've actually dug it out to actually show you what they're doing. And as you can see here, it's basically traveling all around. It's not necessarily a straight line. Sometimes they'll bend around and then it ends up going underneath the concrete. And if you take a look here, you can see all of these roots are exposed. I've got a drip system that actually waters the base of the tree around here. So if this issue wasn't caught in time, the water would go down to the hole and get diverted and probably end up underneath our patio rather than watering this circular area around the tree. The next thing I'm going to do is actually show you how to actually correct this problem. So with this, we're actually going to end up backfilling it and enriching it with more compost. I'm going to show you one more issue over here just to my left. If you zoom in here, this is actually my Lisbon lemon tree. And as you can see, here's a couple of the fruit that are on the plant as well. But this here, if you come in close, you can actually see this is a hole that was actually made by this critter, whether it's a mole or a vole. I haven't caught it, so I don't know what it is. But I'm actually going to correct this problem. And usually you want to deal with the issue, make sure that there are no more holes before you start collapsing these holes. But today we're actually going to collapse these holes and make sure that when we're watering these plants, that it's watering that root base around the tree and not ending up going down these tunnels and getting diverted away from the plant, which can ultimately compromise the life of your tree. So what we're going to do here is we're just basically going to use the back of a tool like this, and we're going to try to push down into these holes. And in some places it's actually giving way and other places, you know, the tunnels aren't there. So I'm basically pressing that down. I'm then going to reshape the circular part around the tree. We're then going to add some compost to fill in all of that soil that was displaced by And the next step is we're just going to water. I'm going to make sure I've got this on my spray mode. And we're just going to soak it. As the soil turns into mud, I'm just going to keep on pushing and filling in the holes. I'm going to turn this off for a second. I want to make this point clear. Do not step around the tree. Sometimes the holes around the tree are so extensive that if you step you actually lower the location of the plant, which can actually harm your plant in a numerous number of ways. So do not step around the plant. Do this with no more than just your hands. Your goal is to just make sure that the water is actually, when you water, basically watering a circular area around your plant and watering the root zone. So I'm just pressing a little bit more around my hands, trying to feel for any other tunnels and taking this mud that I've, you know, created between the soil and the compost and just filling that in. And you can see now the water is actually holding up and staying in a ring around the tree. This is a good sign right now. If the water is staying around the tree, then that means the root ball is getting wet. And I'm going to be monitoring this, you know, every few days to make sure that my watering patterns are just that. That when I'm watering the plants and when these drip irrigations are actually watering around the tree, that the tree actually stays wet around it. But so far we've done a great job. I hope you found this video helpful. If you enjoyed watching it, be sure to like it. And most importantly, don't forget to subscribe as well so you can follow all of our other educational videos with the Ivory Organics 3-in-1 Tree Guard Paint. It was a pleasure doing this video. Take care. Happy gardening.