When Do Moles Come Out?

Moles leave their homes below the ground very rarely. In fact, some never do!
When they do leave the ground, it's usually to look for food. They primarily eat worms, but if they can't find any in the ground and they've grown hungry, they'll leave the ground to look for food on the surface.

They can also come out to collect nesting material when they're creating their nest. There's a similar pattern of behavior with young moles, which leave their mother's nest and leave the ground to look for a new home.

When they do leave the ground for these reasons, it's usually done at night. During the day, they're even more vulnerable than they are during the night. Their primary concern, after humans, are predatory birds like owls and falcons.

Moles are usually active from late winter through spring - during their breeding season. You can spot them outside of that time window too, but they're much less active.

Moles usually aren't useful to your garden and they can easily damage your plants. However, they're a good indicator of health! If you have only a few moles, then you can rest assured that you have a healthy garden.

If there are many moles, however, you have the right to be concerned about the health of your garden. This usually indicates that there's a good reason for them to be in your garden - i.e. food. If there are a lot of moles, then there are a lot of pest in your garden too!

You should test your garden for pest if you notice a mole infestation!

Moles live in tunnel systems below the ground. Their bodies are perfect for burrowing beneath the ground, which is why they live their entire in the soil. Here, they feed on worms.

Their tunnels are virtually never-ending. They only stop digging them once they're dead, and they can dig up to 18 feet of tunnel a day!

The more they dig, the more soil comes out on top. Because of this, you can often spot the distinctive mole hills in your yard.

While they're digging, they're also looking for food. They feed primarily on worms, and they can eat up to 50 pounds of worms in a year. Moles have also developed an intricate system of storing their food.

Sometimes, they feel full and don't want to eat a worm, so they paralyze it with a their toxic saliva and return to eat it later on!

They're also very territorial. If you have a mole in your garden, know that you have a single mole in your garden! It's very rare for more than a single mole to occupy a single living area!

There are many methods gardeners employ to scare moles away. Using electronic devices is one of those methods. Buzzers are a particular favorite to many gardeners, as the buzzing cares the moles away. However, some moles will just move to another part of the garden.

Mole traps are a more extreme way of getting rid of moles in the ground! These devices kill moles, while live-capture traps are also available. Some of them traps are quite difficult to set up and you might need to hire local animal control to take care of your mole for you.

The most obvious problem with moles is that they constantly recolonize your garden. If you take care of a single mole now, a new mole might move in very soon. This problem is nearly unsolvable, with only professionals in animal control actually being able to somewhat control mole population.

The most effective method proves to be worm toxins that will kill all food in the ground, causing the moles to evacuate, as well as mole toxin that some professionals use to kill the mole in the ground.

If moles dig complex tunnels, those tunnels will fill up with rain and they'll drown when it rains heavily, right? Wrong.

If this were the case, moles would drown very, very often. Instead, moles are actually quite good swimmers. There are a few other facts that we need to take into account.

Firstly, it would take incredibly heavy rain to flood a mole's tunnel system. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of feet of tunnels.

If this incredible event would happen, the mole would just start swimming and burrowing its way up, where it would eventually get out on the surface. This is a risky move because of predators, but it's safer than drowning.

However, this doesn't happen as it's almost impossible to flood this deep a system.

Moles are completely harmless and there's no reason to be afraid of them. They might be dangerous to other animals though, as well as your lawn and your garden, because they can cause incredibly unrepairable damage.