Is it harmful for a dog to play with a laser pointer? Why do dogs run after laser pointers? What about cats?

Making a mole cricket trap with your own hands is quick and simple, the effect reaches 90%. It's simple and effective. To build the structure, jars, bottles, buckets, planks, linoleum, plywood sheets, and plastic film are used. To attract the insect into the trap, bait with a strong aroma is prepared.

You will need an empty bottle of any capacity.

• Make a small depression in the ground, water the soil so that it does not fall through.
• They dig in the bottle at an angle.
• First, food bait with vegetable oil or 100 ml of beer is placed inside.
• Cover the hole with a plank, a sheet of plywood, or linoleum. Any material available on the farm. They create favorable conditions for the insect, protecting it from sunlight.

• turn on a bright flashlight;
• A bucket of soapy water is placed underneath it.

Insects fly into a bright light, hit a lantern, and fall into the water. They find their death there. In one night you can collect half a bucket of pests.

Banks

You will need 500 ml jars. Fill halfway with water. They dig throughout the garden or in separate beds at a distance of 50 cm. The neck should rise 5 mm above the soil or be completely level with it. Traps are checked daily.

On a note!

Water attracts mole crickets very strongly, but if the effect is weak, you can try porridge bait.

This mole cricket trap is the simplest, but no less effective. Additionally, other folk methods of struggle are used (with the help, etc.)

Soapy water

You can wait for the mole cricket to come out of the hole on its own following the smell of the bait, or you can help her decide on her own.

Prepare a soap solution. Add any soap product to a bucket of water - powder, soap, washing gel, etc. Find mole cricket holes and pour water into them.

Sensing danger, mole crickets will crawl out of the emergency entrance to the surface. At this moment, you should chop them with a shovel, breaking the body into 2 parts. Insects that did not have time to escape emerge from their holes along with the water, already dead.

Shadow like a trap

Mole crickets love warmth, moisture, and lack of light. If there is no time to build traps, but you need to catch the pest urgently, proceed as follows:

• choose a sunny area in the garden;
• dig a small hole;
• water with plenty of water;
• covered with a sheet of plywood, iron or other suitable material.

Preparatory procedures should be done early in the morning with the first rays of the sun. When the sun rises well, it will warm the earth. Mole crickets will crawl into a damp place to bask. At approximately 11 o'clock in the afternoon, carefully and silently make your way to the trap, immediately splash a large amount of soapy water into the trap, or destroy the pests with a shovel. There are other ways.

On a note!

Mole crickets are fearful creatures and react sharply to sounds. If you can’t approach silently, then you should use another version of the trap.

Bait

The trap will not work or will be ineffective if the bait is not offered to your liking.

Smell requirements

The contents should be fragrant. To enhance the smell of any prepared product, you need to add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil. Other scents may repel insects.

Beer bait

The best remedy for mole crickets is beer. There is no need to buy expensive drinks; pests will not appreciate this gesture. You can get by with the cheapest option. 50 ml is poured into trap bottles, this is enough for insects to smell the smell. Or simply bury a beer bottle with drops of the drink left in the ground as a trap.

Porridge for bears

The bait is made from cereals. Prepare crumbly porridge. Cook until half cooked, cover with a lid, wrap in a towel. Place in small handfuls in a trap. Rice, millet, barley, peas are suitable. To enhance the effect, a poisonous agent is added to the porridge. The simplest option is boric acid. The substance is tasteless and odorless and will do nothing to repel the mole cricket. But it will begin to act when it enters the stomach.

Dish with a surprise

You can cook it with a little surprise. Any toxic agent is diluted in water. Fits , . Soak the peas for a day. Scattered into traps. This option is suitable for those who do not want to bother with live insects. The trap will already contain dead pests. The poison is effective for 3 hours.

Any type of trap gives a good result, but does not guarantee complete cleansing of the land from pests. Works great in tandem with other control methods.

If you do not systematically fight the mole cricket, it can destroy everything that grows in the beds.

The mole cricket is called the earthen crayfish for its claws with a jagged file.

It also has the following popular names: top, cabbage, underground pirate.

Features of the life of a mole cricket

Adult mole crickets are dark brown in color and reach a length of up to 6 cm. They live in the ground, in the air and in water. At night they bark over considerable distances. They breed in May-June, dig nests at a depth of 15-20 cm and lay about 500 eggs. After 2 weeks, the larvae appear, and at the end of June they emerge from the nests and settle throughout the area. The roots of cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots and many other crops suffer from them.

For many gardeners, a big problem is the cabbage mole cricket.

If she gets divorced, all the compost carefully spread around the site in the fall will go into her food - she will eat everything! The mole cricket walks under the surface of the soil at a depth of two to three fingers. It gnaws and eats young stems and roots, larvae, and worms encountered along the way - an omnivorous animal.

Using plastic bottles

The problem of mole crickets in the garden can be solved in the following way. The weak point of the mole cricket: it does not dig very deep.

Therefore, firstly, if the walls of the bed are deepened even a little, the mole cricket will not get into the bed.

Secondly, seedlings can be planted in pieces of plastic bottles - cylinders without a bottom, 10-12 cm high. Let them stick out above the soil a couple of centimeters, the rest - deeper. The mole cricket will simply walk around your plants and damage the weeds.

Using washing powder

Find fresh minks, fill them with a solution of washing powder (3 tablespoons per bucket of water). Slowly pour the solution from the mug, wait about 5 minutes, the insects will crawl out and begin to crawl in different directions. And then you can finish it off with a shovel. In this way, you can catch more than 60 individuals over the summer, not counting the cubs.

Using eggshells

Collect eggshells, crush into powder, moisten with vegetable oil for scent. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon into the holes. Having eaten such bait, the mole cricket dies.

Using poisoned grain

Mix 1 kg of steamed grain, 40 ml of vegetable oil and 40-50 g of insecticide, and dig into the grooves to a depth of 3-5 cm. This is poison for the mole cricket.

And millet porridge

You need to take a kilogram of millet, cook a thick porridge from it, add to it two tablespoons of sugar and two teaspoons of one of the pesticides - sherpa or decisa. Mix everything well. Between the rows of potatoes or vegetable crops, make shallow grooves with a hoe, put the porridge in them and sprinkle with earth. Having tried such a meal, two days later the mole cricket crawls out of its hiding places onto the surface of the soil and immediately dies.

The value of the method also lies in the fact that it can be used in the spring - before planting potatoes, vegetables, and used long before harvesting, which is safe for human health.

Tricky traps

Fence the slopes of the ridges with planted cucumbers, peppers, and eggplants on all sides with boards, burying them 5-6 cm into the soil. The mole cricket will try to avoid such an obstacle. In this case, dig 3-liter glass jars at the end of each board, leaving them open. You can take 0.5 empty bottles, fill them with 100 ml of vegetable oil and dig them in at the soil surface level. Very good catch!

In the fall, dig trap holes 0.5 m deep every 5 m. Place fresh horse manure in them and cover them with earth. When the snow falls, dig the contents of the holes and scatter them over the snow. In the cold and frost, mole crickets will die.

Fighting the chrysanthemum mole cricket

The mole cricket, gnawing on plants, does a lot of harm to our plants. And this bright brown creature with shovel-shaped and rake-shaped paws is dangerous, especially because, living under the thickness of the earth, it actually remains inaccessible to humans: you can’t take it with poisons or catch it with your hands. However, there is control over him. As studies and experience of gardeners have shown, it does not tolerate bear of chrysanthemum scent

. Its sharp, rich aroma kills the pest and forces it to leave its favorite places. Experienced vegetable growers took advantage of this.

When planting tomatoes, they put a handful of dry leaves in the holes and do not know the trouble caused by mole crickets with the traditional method of planting tomatoes. Chrysanthemum bushes growing between vegetable crops also have a repellent effect on the pest. It is enough to plant it in the spaces between the potato rows, and the mole cricket does not dare to breed in the beds.

Repelling mole crickets with marigolds

It turns out that the mole cricket does not like the smell of the marigold flower (tagetis). Therefore, in the spring, for prevention, plant them along the borders of the site and near the pest’s burrows.

Infusion of creep droppings

A large number of chemical means of combating mole crickets are for the most part not as effective as manufacturers promise.

Therefore, people have to try various folk methods, of which there are quite a few. When faced with such a tenacious and omnivorous pest, it is desirable to have a remedy that will be effective even with the first and only use.

Medvedka loves gardeners who manure their plots well and water them regularly. The mole cricket insect attacks both above-ground parts of plants, as well as roots, root crops and even sown seeds. All vegetable crops (except garlic) and strawberries make up the mole cricket’s diet

You can fight mole crickets with peas:

* 1 kg of pea halves (namely halves);

* Remedy for the Colorado potato beetle (Fury, Aktara, Antizhuk, Decis, Confidor, etc.);
* 1 liter of water.

Dilute the remedy for the Colorado potato beetle in 1 liter of water, and then soak the pea halves in the solution. The peas must stand in the solution for at least 12 hours, then the halves will absorb the prepared mixture well and acquire the strength we need.
Afterwards, all that remains is to scatter the halves around the garden or area where the unwanted guest was noticed.
Important!
Use this method during spring plowing. It is necessary that the halves end up in the ground at a depth of 15 centimeters.
Why halves?
Use only pea halves, as the halves lose their ability to germinate and remain in the soil for a long time, thereby continuing their invisible battle with the mole cricket throughout the season.

And further:
The pea method is very effective. Only I used wheat instead of peas. The number of pests has decreased. But we still protect the seedlings with plastic.

And also a fish way to fight mole crickets, without chemicals.

The method of control is that it turns out that the insect cannot stand the smell of rotten fish.
When planting seedlings of cucumbers, tomatoes, cabbage, you need to put a few pieces of the cheapest fish in the hole.
Even the head, bones and scales will do. The fish quickly rots, and the mole cricket avoids this place.
Along the edges of the beds with carrots, beets, and green crops, I lay out pieces of fish and lightly sprinkle them with earth. While the seeds are germinating, the fish begins to deteriorate, and this smell prevents the pest from destroying the young seedlings.
It is advisable to add fish during the entire period of insect activity until harvest.
Or instead of fish, garlic is placed in the hole. One clove is enough. Of course, it is better to add new cloves several times during the season, but this is very easy to do.

Another new bread recipe for fighting mole crickets

In the old days there were no “poisons”, and the peasants somehow still saved their harvest.

I tried a lot in the fight against mole crickets:
and plastic rings, and cloth, and eggshells, and fish - all to no avail. When planting, they put sprat along with the potato tubers - it didn’t help.
For a mole cricket, plastic and fabric are just a kind of fence that it easily overcomes.
The neighbors took a different route: they installed rattles, but the effect was also short-lived. I had to replant the seedlings 2-3 times to new places.
Last year I was advised a new way to fight, and it really turned out to be effective.

In early spring, when the mole cricket is already looking for food for itself, and nothing is growing in the garden yet, I feed it with a special “treat”.
I soak pieces of stale bread in this mixture:
- for 1 liter of water I add 1 packet of any insecticide, 1 packet or ampoule of Wofatox and 2-3 tsp. vegetable oil.
Then I lower the bread into each hole along with seedlings or potato tubers.

The result is excellent!!!
Last summer I didn’t replant anything and was left with the harvest. Planted 2 buckets of potatoes - harvested 20! And no news from the pest.
Doubts about the method? Check it out for yourself.

The easiest way to protect yourself is with Alder.

Stick several thin alder twigs around each seedling to a depth of 10-12 cm around the perimeter.

Alder is an insecticidal plant and repels mole cricket well; as it dries out, the twigs need to be changed.

You need to plant a flower - marigolds - along the borders of the plot; it is unpretentious, has a specific aroma, and will reliably protect your garden from the encroachments of the mole cricket.

Bear loves beer!

Oddly enough, but a fairly effective means of combating mole crickets is... beer! The bait is prepared as follows.

Thoroughly wash several glass bottles and pour 100-150 g of fresh beer into each of them. Bury the bottles in different places in a slightly inclined position with the neck up, as shown in the figure, while the neck should be slightly higher than the ground and not touch it.

Cover the trap site with a piece of iron or old tile. Since the mole cricket is attracted to damp places, water the ground around the traps with a small amount of water from time to time, but do not allow puddles to form and make sure that the water does not get into the bottle. It is advisable to plug the neck with something before watering it.

After 6-10 days the bottle can be dug up. Pests, having penetrated it, cannot get back out along the slippery glass surface. Then, having gotten rid of the insects that came across, you can replace the beer in the trap and install it again in places where mole crickets accumulate. One such trap is quite enough for 4 m2 of area. Catching mole crickets in this way can begin with the first work on the site and end just before frost.

In the fall, before frosts, in places where there is a large concentration of mole crickets, dig several holes in a checkerboard pattern at a distance of about half a meter from each other, put horse manure in them, pour a pile of earth on top and mark them with pegs. With the onset of severe cold, open the holes and scatter the manure over the snow. Large numbers of pests hiding there for the winter will die from frost.

Fighting Medvedka with plastic bottles

And we fight mole crickets like this: we cut plastic bottles into 2 wide rings, insert them into the ground so that the seedling bush is inside the ring. The neck and bottom must be cut off. A kind of flower bed is formed. The mole cricket crawls up to the plant, rests against the plastic and goes around it.

You need to eat it! And don't fight her

By the way: Medvedka has been used to treat tuberculosis since ancient times.

They say that recovery occurs in 90% of cases. And this is not a joke, this is traditional medicine!

If you are seriously ill, you will probably eat more than just mole crickets to get better.

So, it’s better not to get sick!

An adult mole cricket has a dark brown body 3-5 cm long and small wings.

During the mating period, the mole cricket is capable of flying long distances. The mole cricket is adapted to an underground lifestyle.

The mole cricket overwinters in the soil at a depth of 70-80 cm. When the weather becomes warm, the mole cricket makes horizontal passages at a depth of 3-5 cm.

The presence of mole crickets on the site can be recognized by drying plants, small mounds, vertical passages 10-15 cm deep and the ground trail from their underground tunnels.

Agrotechnical methods of combating mole crickets:

• Loosening the row spacing to a depth of 10 cm throughout the mole cricket’s entire egg-laying period, to destroy the mole cricket’s passages and destroy the eggs.
• Refusal to fertilize plants with fresh mullein in areas where mole crickets live.
• Watering the ground with chicken manure infusion in dry weather to repel mole crickets.
• Planting marigolds around the perimeter of the plot; the mole cricket cannot stand their smell.
• Setting up mole cricket traps in the fall at soil temperatures above +9ºC. Per hundred square meters, they dig two holes 60 cm deep, put manure in them, which is scattered when stable frosts occur.

Chemical methods of combating mole crickets based on the State catalog of pesticides approved for use on the territory of the Russian Federation in 2011:

• Application to the soil during the growing season to a depth of 3-5 cm of the preparations Grom (30 g / 10 m²) and Phenaxin plus (100 g / 10 m²) - vegetable and flower crops, strawberries, potatoes, Grizzly (20 g / 10 m²) are allowed for use - flower crops are allowed for use, Medvetox (3 g/m²) - flower crops and potatoes are allowed for use. Entry period for the treated area for manual work is 7 days
• Baits based on Bankol - vegetables, flowers, strawberries, and potatoes are allowed for use. To prepare 1 kg of bait you need 10 grams of Bankol, 800 grams of wheat bran, 50-100 grams of water, 50 grams of molasses (50 grams of sunflower oil). Bait consumption is 1 kg per 100 m².

Preventive measures in the fight against

Recently, small laser flashlights have become very popular, the thin strong beam of which, like a pointer, shines several tens of meters ahead. Pet owners appreciate this exciting invention.

The most creative of them tried to adapt this device for playing with a dog. Working on the principle of a ray of sunlight, the point left by the pointer teases the animal with its inaccessibility and forces the dog to chase the ray with ecstasy and excitement, trying to grab the elusive prey. The advantage of this entertainment is that you can play it even in complete darkness, when you can no longer see any sticks or balls.

Becoming an increasingly popular toy and training aid, the laser pointer is, however, not an absolute must-have.

Dog owners have many laser-related concerns.

• Will the laser beam damage the retina if it accidentally hits the animal's eyes? This could really happen. Fortunately, commercially available pointers have a fairly low power, which is only enough to indicate a light spot, but nevertheless, try to keep the beam out of your pet’s eyes, and, of course, never deliberately shine it into your pet’s eyes at close range. eyes.
• Does fixation on catching a luminous spot harm the animal’s psyche? Owners of dogs with an excitable nervous system claim that animals, having tried playing with a laser pointer, literally become a slave to the bright ray. Capable of running tirelessly, they see no one or anything except inaccessible prey and, subsequently, completely switch from the owner to the pointer. To prevent this from happening, try to start and end the game with some neutral object that you hold in your hands. Let's say, when you go out for a walk, show your pet the ball, leave it several times, getting the dog interested. After that, take out the laser, play with it as much as you see fit, and at the end of the game - the ball again. Thus, the animal begins and ends its entertainment with something directly related to the hands of the owner.
• Isn't it harmful for the dog that the game has no logical conclusion - it is impossible to catch the prey in the first place? They say that playing for the sake of playing is more typical of cats. The dog pursues more specific goals - pursuit, capture, possession of prey. However, in reality, dogs very often play without any purpose. And an example of this is the favorite game of dogs of all times - chasing a sunbeam. Running after a pointer for 10-15 minutes a day will not cause much harm. By the way, in most cases the dog decides for itself whether it is interested in such a pastime. There are individuals who, realizing that the beam on the ground appears from an object held by the owner, firmly switch to their hands and try to play with the light source.
• Will a dog confuse the light of a laser pointer with the red brake lights of cars? Despite the fact that in most cases dogs are excellent at distinguishing between different light sources, caution still does not hurt. Try not to play with the pointer near roads or houses, so that the associations associated with the game are not tied to the city. As soon as you go out into the field or forest, turn on the light.
• Will anyone who asks him to play with a laser take his dog away? Opponents of such entertainment claim that any person who waves a bright luminous dot in front of an animal will be able to freely take your pet away. This fear is only partly true. It all depends on how strong the bond you have with your four-legged friend. If the entire walk, in order not to strain, you just wave a red or green beam in front of your pet’s nose, the dog will really get used to walking not with you, but with a cheerful spot of light. And, by and large, she won’t care who provides her with such entertainment. Constantly switching the animal's attention to different activities will allow you to maintain contact with the dog and not let him forget that the laser pointer is just one of the ways he owes you a good time.

There are many things in the world that have no practical purpose, but bring joy to animals and their owners. Contrary to popular belief, a dog is not just a working mechanism, the main thing for which is expediency.

She also likes initially meaningless things - running through thick grass, swimming, catching splashes or diving into a snowdrift for a snowball that instantly crumbles into pieces. A laser pointer is just one way to entertain and engage your pet, make your walks more varied and rich, and, ultimately, further strengthen the contact between you and your faithful friend.

Natasha Sherwood