Don’t I know it 
I haven’t bothered this year, with only one détaupeur, it soon became a losing battle.
This is repeat advice from a year or two ago.
At the start of Spring fresh mole hills often appear in our garden (don’t know how they tunnel throught the surrounding schist). I just put a capful of anti-taupe granules down each hole and after a few days new mole hills stop appearing.
I’ve been using this brand for ten years and found it very effective. It repels the moles through smell, is non-poisonous and organic. Looking at the comments on Amazon about a third of purchasers give it five stars and a similar number, only one. However, it’s so cheap and doesn’t turn the garden into minefield, so it’s surely worth trying.
[BSI Anti-Mole Hunting Mole Granule : Amazon.fr: Garden](https://)
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The positioning of the rod was my mistake. I thought it was 1cm from the surface. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll have another go this evening
We are using some sort of spring trap which works occasionally, one of the cats is a mole and rat catcher - proudly showing off every time. Even the chickens got lucky once. Poor mole came up in the chicken enclosure… never seen a mole flung about by greedy hens before. I walked away so I dont know if it survived.
Tried granules the year after we moved in. Miserable failure, as far as we’re concerned, notwithstanding the cost !
Sorry to read that. Wonder why the granules work so well with some people’s moles and not with others.
I assume our moles are Aveyronnaise, but we’re right on the border of the Cantal and one sees lots of molehills up there…
Just leave the wretched creatures alone 
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It takes a bit of practice and perseverance, i sometimes put one in a hole and wait up to three days without success, then another mound appears put one in and next day its gone off.
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I’d learn to live with them, and most certainly would not kill them.
But I don’t have manicured lawns which must remain forever pristine, just a large garden which I share with nature.
A difficult decision maybe to make for those who do have manicured lawns, or vegetable gardens or other suchlike, no doubt.
Some may consider measures to prevent mole invasion to be too expensive, or perhaps consider moles to be a bloody nuisance and what’s the easiest cheapest way out. But when so much is spent on buying, repairing, renovating property and developing land to increase income, why not spend a little on preventive measures.
Expensive walls, fences, gates, spiky shrubbery, electronic alarm systems, you name it, are built/installed to keep people out, why not spend considerably less than that to keep moles out.
In the wider view, isn’t it better to use intelligent fertility control of feral animals, foxes & badgers, and other so-called pests, hindering human activity & fulfilment, than straight out killing? And I’m not advocating birth control for moles.
If I felt so badly bothered by moles, I’d use other measures, such as a below ground fence to keep them out, as bothersome as that may be, plus ongoing humane vigilance.
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What a fascinating insight into the world of mole catchers… I had no idea…
We use a mole catcher here in 16 and since he began his ministrations, the population of moles on our land (1½+ Hectares) has diminished dramatically but still persists… he really understands their methodologies and its far easier for him to deal with them rather than us stress out on them. They can be devious little buggers!
As for cost… before we contacted our chap, we spent a lot of money on replacement blades for the tondeuse - it has 3 blades - and whilst we are now getting older, it’s difficult to change them ourselves so the machine has to be collected, the work done and then returned to us which can work out to be quite expensive… Now we just have one service per year on the machine. 1½ Hectares is an awful lot of grass to cut!
I once asked him about whether he keeps the pelts… he said he used to but the price paid for them now is meagre and they stink his vehicle out, so he just throws them over the fence into our woods.
Thanks for posting it - we’ve forwarded it to him in case he hasn’t seen it himself (hopefully he won’t put our price up in consequence!)
Most people use traps, I haven’t heard of anyone chasing them with a lawnmower !
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haha… my bad use of language 
What I meant by that was the blighters push up a soil mound full of sharp little stones which bugger up the blades 
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I sympathize! I cannot for the life of me change the drive belt on my sit-on motor mower, and have to get the trailer out, off to the repair shop, to get it done. How I would love to be 50 again!
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Hi again. Getting rid of MOLES. I seemed to have got rid of them for a while - but, like the Terminator, they’re back. What is favourite for getting rid of the little ƃüǧǥɛṟƨ?
I scoop up all their molehills and add it to the raised beds - good stuff; it’s one small compensation - but I want them gone. I’ve poured another tonne of water from one of my water butts down the holes, and it just vanished; there must be quite a cavern down there with them doing the breaststroke or crawl. I’ve used bangers in the past but I’ve run out of them. I’ve regularly peed down their holes and even emptied the contents of the PortaPotti down there but, this morning, there are seven new mounds. The moles are winning.
I don’t really want to kill them, I just want them to ƃüǧǥɛṟ off. I hear that there are gadgets that constantly go “Boom, boom boom,” in the ground, like the ‘thumpers’ in the movie “Dune”; do they work? I might try opening up their holes and leaving the ride-on mower running over the top for a while.
Whatchathink?
I’m sorry to say I have no answer. Moles are soooo persistent. Our dog helped but more for fun than getting rid
I’ve been successfully using BSI Anti-Taupes granules for many years (posted on this thread about three years ago) They’re not poisonous and won’t damage the soil - you put a capful down each hole and the smell drives them away.
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I have used granules, along with smoke capsuls and those windmill things that are supposd to make a noise they don’t like. None of them worked and the granules were neatly deposited on the surface! I can’t remember what make they were so @DrMarkH 's version may well work, I don’t know.
The only thing that has worked for me is the Detaupeur killing device - I did try everything else I could find first
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When I had to put a stop to the battle of the Somme garden it was the mole smokes that worked. Moles have two runs, the food runs are near the surface ut living quarters are much deeper runs hence why a lot of things dont work. Putting something down the holes, try to locate the deep runs. I put the smokes down those and you could see the smoke rising from many places and the moles came no more. A sad end but it really was a bad mess they were making.
Just let them live their lives.
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