Moles and Voles
Quick Mole Facts:
- Solitary, one mole to the burrow system.
- Insectivores-moles eat worms, grubs, etc.
- Damage crops and turf by up rooting plants.
- Mounds and raised burrow areas can cause machinery damage and are unsightly in landscaping.
- Build two tiered burrow systems. A subsurface burrow is used for feeding and a lower burrow, laterals, from six to twelve inches deep is used to connect feeding burrows and waste dirt mounds.
Additional Mole Information: Ohio State University: http://ohioline.osu.edu/w-fact/0011.html
Mole Treatment with PERC:
- Successful treatment demands that laterals are probed and filled with carbon monoxide.
- Subsurface feeding burrows will not hold a high enough concentration of the fumigant gas to kill the mole.
- Treat fresh digging only. Moles reuse lateral burrows, but they are also continually digging new burrows.
- Persistence and multiple probes of the same burrow complex result in high levels of success.
Quick Vole (Field Mice) Facts:
- The names vole and field mice are used for basically the same mouse. Different locals use either one or the other or both. (my experience)
- Voles live in colonies and can explode to very dense populations under favorable conditions.
- They eat green surface vegetation (for the most part) and can eliminate any growth within a colony.
- They have multiple holes within the colony that are kept open and may or may not be connected underground.
- Voles or field mice will establish new colonies and under favorable conditions, adjacent colonies will expand till they overlap.
Additional Vole (Meadow Mice or Field Mice) Information:
UC Davis: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7439.html
University of Nebraska Vole Handbook (PDF): http://wildlifedamage.unl.edu/handbook/handbook/allPDF/ro_b177.pdf
Vole (Meadow Mice or Field Mice) Treatment with PERC:
- Though multi acreage treatment has not been done, individual colony treatment has proven successful.
- Voles are very susceptible to carbon monoxide.
- As many holes as possible within a colony should be fumigated; at the same time if possible.
- Holes do not need be sealed off. The sensitivity of the animal to CO and its heavier than air property works in the applicator's favor.