Mole and Vole Control
Yesterday your lawn looked great, but today you woke up to a lawn with raised mounds and tunnels throughout. The tunnels make mowing difficult and just won’t go away. You think you may have moles in your lawn … But is it a mole or a vole, can you tell which is which?
The cute guy on the left is a vole. Voles are herbivores, which means they eat plants. A vole is extremely destructive for gardeners and homeowners. They eat bulbs, kill grass and even strip the bark from trees and shrubs.
The ugly, strange creature on the right is a mole. Moles are insectivores. Their diet primarily consists of earthworms, grubs and some insects. On a typical day a mole will eat an equivalent of its body weight in food, which means moles are constantly tunneling in search of food. This tunneling will make a mess of a yard or garden and will deplete the worms that help replenish nutrients in the soil.
So what are the signs and how do you know which creature is damaging your lawn or garden?
Look at the tunnels. A vole tunnel will be obvious, because it will look like a line of dead grass. A mole tunnel might appear slightly raised, and it will feel squishy when you step on it. Moles also leave baseball sized holes at the end of their tunnels and sometimes you will see what is called a “volcano” mound, which is a mound of dirt at the opening of the mole tunnel.
Watch for the pests. As you can see from the pictures above, moles and voles don’t look remotely similar. While you will hardly ever see a mole, voles do come out rather frequently. If your pest looks rodent-like, you probably have a vole on your hands.
Count the culprits. Moles are a lonely bunch. You hardly ever find more than two in a typical yard. Voles on the other hard are very social creatures and they multiply quickly. A vole can have up to 30 offspring per year.
One common misconception about mole control is that if your lawn has grubs in it, eliminating the grubs will eliminate the mole problem. In reality, 80% of a mole’s diet is earthworms. While eliminating grubs is a good thing for lawns, it does not guarantee that moles will also go away. If grubs are a problem, an application of Agway Grub Control, according to label directions, will eliminate them for up to a year. A two-step program of Agway Grub Control and Agway Mole Repellent is the best treatment plan to eliminate damage to your lawn by grubs and moles.
Agway’s Mole Repellent is a specially formulated repellent that will rid your lawn of damaging moles quickly and effectively. Formulated using castor oil, Agway Mole Repellent repels through the animal’s sense of touch, smell and taste. It works 3 ways to make moles and other lawn damaging animals, including voles, skunks and chipmunks, leave the treated area. Regular applications will keep the nuisance animals from returning and minimize lawn damage.
Photos Courtesy of Liquid Fence
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