Mole Killer"Smokes" Out Pests

Mole Killer"Smokes" Out Pests MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Pest Animals 29-3-11 Don Rickard couldn't get rid of the moles under his garden. He tried Tabasco sauce, Juicy Fruit gum and even put CO2 cartridges down in the tunnels. Nothing worked until he decided to "smoke æem" by putting heated exhaust down the tunnels. "I found this old mower that was so worn out that all it did was smoke, which made it perfect for this job. The original carburetor was replaced with a Briggs and Stratton carburetor because they're faithful and don't leak gas when idle," Rickard says, adding that it's bolted on an old push mower chassis to transport easily. He removed the muffler and screwed on a copper fitting that attaches to a 3-ft. long piece of 3/4-in. dia. flexible steel hose. Since it gets hot and burns the grass underneath, Rickard puts a piece of concrete block under the hose when in use. Rickard flattens the tunnels, and then returns later to see which are active. Then, he pushes the hose into one of them, packs the soil around it, and runs the motor for 5 to 10 min. "I can tell if it's doing some good by the smoke coming out of the far ends of the tunnels. This will get the moles behind the walls and under flowerbeds," he says, adding that the heat has no effect on grass or plants. Later, he checks the area for new activity. When he doesn't find any, he knows it worked. "I never see the dead moles. They don't come up for a breath of fresh air," Rickard says. He says the machine is relatively quiet even though there's no muffler on the motor. "Neighbors come over to see what a motor is doing, running by itself in the yard," he says. "Then they want to borrow it." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Don Rickard, 287 Maewen Circle, Russellville, Ark. 72802 (ph 479 968-2274; email: dricka@cox-internet.com).

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