Texas moles exist in three stages during their lifetime; eggs, nymphs, and adults. They can be identified by their appearance which includes pink snouts, round shaped body with their fur varying from dark grey to black colour, long claws and webbed feet. The moles spend the most part of their lives underground but once they develop into adults they have wings that help them to fly and disperse during their breeding season. Moles are omnivores, or can be more specifically called "insectivores" because they mainly feed on worms, insects, larvae, along with grasses and small stems. Even though the moles, while underground, naturally aerates the soil and kill harmful insects at the root of the plants, they themselves impose major threat to the plants in a garden or a lawn by destructing the roots of the plants and leading them to brown quickly.



The Austin moles enter gardens and lawns in search of insects and grasses to eat; in the meantime posing threat to the quality of the plants. There are several natural and store-bought remedies to fight moles in a garden, but none of these have been found completely effective to eradicate the family of moles from a particular area. A mixture of castor oil, cayenne pepper, liquid dish detergent with a portion of water can be used as a mole repellent. Another way can be by using a shovel to dig the earth around the mole tunnel and using another shovel beside it and placing an inverted garbage can or a bucket to trap the moles. This remedy can turn ineffective as well as dangerous because the shovels used are sharp and can wound children or pets when not careful enough. The moles do not grow on the plants, but damage the roots while digging.

The commercially available Texas mole repellents are also usually castor oil based but they usually lose their effect once sprayed along the area, in a week. Another repellent is 'Thiram' which is used to keep insects and pests away from fruits and vegetables. There are also various kinds of traps available in the market to stunt the spreading of moles, but they, with their sharp spears and strong chokers pose danger. The poison baits available, that are rich in Bromelthalin and Warfarin along with gas bombs fail to eradicate the moles completely because whenever they smell something obnoxious, they tend to close their channels making the poisonous gases ineffective.

No kind of repellents, whether home made or commercially bought are reliable to completely protect the plants in the garden and lawn, even though people mistakenly think that they have successfully got rid of them as after the above mentioned methods, new Austin molehills are not seen for sometime. The reason for this ineffectiveness is simple; the moles build their channels underground for several feets and whenever a repellent is applied on the surface, the ones present on the ground or near it die and the rest hide deep inside the channels where the repellent do not reach. Once its period of action terminates they reappear on the surface and the cycle continues.

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