how big are the trees you are moving ...

many suggest .. a tree is twice as large underground ... as you see above ... and in all reality.. there is no way to dig up any but the tiniest of trees... without cutting the roots ...

sharpen your shovel.. and do trim root ends with clean cuts ... note such on 3rd pic below ... all clean cut root tips ...

below are 3 pix when i moved a 6 foot prunus serrotina .... just as an example ...

ken

New roots won't come from cut root ends until spring bud break so if you cut them much back now they will sit all winter with the same markedly reduced root systems - notice the tradition in commercial practice of digging field grown trees and shrubs in fall (such as November) that are to be sold bare rooted the following year, placing these in cold and damp storage until end of winter (like February) and then shipping them in time for late winter-early spring installation in final planting sites. When a woody plant has had most of its fine roots removed by hard pruning (or killed by bare-rooting) it then becomes basically a partly rooted cutting the entire time until the missing roots begin to be replaced in spring.

I will be moving small trees, no taller than 30-40 cm