Welcome to Legal Tender Farm

Welcome to Legal Tender Farm

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Preliminary Critter Gitter Review

The Critter Gitter is basically...a hose.  Heh.  One end of the flexible hose is attached to the exhaust pipe of a vehicle - car, truck, tractor, whatever, with the clamp provided and tightened with a bolt. 

The other end, which has a thick PVC-like pipe attached, goes directly into whatever mole hole that is discovered.  I found several while trying to plant some onions this morning.  I cleared away the dirt surrounding the hole and patted it down at the entrance to the tunnel so that it wouldn't cave in.  Then I inserted the pipe as far as it would go and packed the dirt around it to keep the exhaust from backflowing.

Tom started the truck and then we waited.  The most difficult thing about it was that the hose has to be kept almost perfectly straight.  If it's not straight, it will flatten out and/or kink and the exhaust won't flow through.  So we had to position the truck "just so" each time we moved to a new hole.  Another thing is that it is very time consuming.  Each tunnel that is found has to be treated for at least 15 minutes.  Since I don't think the mole that Tom gassed yesterday was killed, we made it 20 minutes for good measure even though the instructions said no longer than 15 minutes.  Since we couldn't go off and leave the Critter Gitter unattended and had to stand around waiting, a happy consequence of the waiting was that I got the rest of my onions, cannas, and sunflowers planted, plus to kill time, Tom helped weed the garden.

The verdict is still out.  Supposedly, the moles have peacefully died in their sleep, but we won't know until we see more mole mounds, tunnels, or damaged veggies.  Critter Gitter could possibly improve upon their design by using a hose like a vacuum house or dryer hose that can be bent but will still stay open and let the exhaust flow.



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