melissel Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 If you've dealt with this, what has worked for you? One popped up in the yard yesterday and seems to be living under the shed. It must be new, because I haven't noticed any damage to the garden...yet. This morning I watched it meander around the middle of the yard, nibbling at the lawn, then it scurried off back to the shed. I really don't want to kill this thing. I don't want it to die under my shed if I poison it, and I don't have a gun to do the job quickly (plus, we're in the middle of the suburbs--I can just imagine the neighbors' reactions :lol:). I could get a humane trap, but then I worry that I'm leaving some family of groundhogs to die a slow death or that I'm dropping the thing off somewhere to be killed in some other groundhog's territory, etc. I've seen the liquid and granulated repellents (e.g., fox urine), but...ick! and they don't seem to work in general anyway. So if you've dealt with this, what worked for you? TIA! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom0012 Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 :bigear: The groundhogs are really getting out of hand here as well. I had an old bagel I wanted to throw in the yard for the birds, but didn't because I figured I'd wind up with a groundhog on my front porch eating a bagel. Lisa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JessReplanted Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 There's an older woman from our (old) church who told me a story about how she killed an entire family of groundhogs by hitting them over the head with a metal shovel. :blink: I wouldn't be able to do it, but it worked for her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrganicAnn Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 There are traps to catch animals alive and then you can transport them. I think they are called Have a Heart Traps. You can try to scare them off - you can buy coyote or wolf urine. Or borrow a friends dog. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twinmom Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 They really can be feisty...no matter what, do not approach! I second the humane traps. There really isn't much you can do to protect the babies if there is a den of them under the shed, but chances are it is a single guy if it just showed up. You do, however, run a risk of injury if you allow it to stay. We have had two in the yard. The first showed up while my twins were out playing with the dog...you can imagine how that ended! My golden retriever went into protective mode and got into a fight with the groundhog, with the kids standing by! The little guy was up on his back legs, teeth bared, fighting like a badger. Callie grabbed him by the neck and shook him to death. The kids totally lost it. The second time one showed up, he was lucky enough to wander by on the outside of our picket fence. Callie was outside again and an epic battle ensued through the fence. I have it on video! No matter the threat of the dog and the ease of escape, that groundhog was willing to fight through the fence even while bleeding! Ferocious little guy. His feet were up on the bottom rail of the fence and got scratched by the dog...he didn't care a bit....just kept biting through the fence at her until I dragged her inside. He wandered away only after the dog was removed! Come to think of it, you might just get a big, protective dog...:D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomsintheGarden Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 I despise groundhogs. They dig under the fence and eat my peas, squash, tomatoes, carrot tops, etc. They make holes in our neighbor's paddocks (for the horses to break their legs in) and dig under their barns. What pests! This week we've trapped and shot four of them of all sizes. There was another one next to the garden this morning. I wouldn't mind them if they would just stay out of the fence! My first recommendation is to borrow a havaheart trap, catch it (probably them), transport it to a friend's house in the country, shoot it, and bury it. PLEASE do not trap it and transport it somewhere else to be someone else's problem! Traps are easy to bait. Cut an apple in half and smear peanut butter on the cut side. Save the other half to use for the next one. Wrap a rubber band securely around the apple, then tie it to the top of the trap just beyond or over the trigger. Set the trap and position it in the groundhog's path (they are creatures of habit and usually travel the same way). The trap should be placed so the groundhog is likely to walk "up" the small ramp formed by the set trigger. Groundhogs especially like peaches, but they are more tricky to tie to the trap. I wouldn't waste a good peach on a groundhog anyway. If you really, really can't get rid of the groundhog for good, you can also pour used cat litter in its hole. It will probably leave and bother someone else. GardenMom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidsHappen Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 You really want to get rid of them as they will tunnel under your house and compromise your foundation. We went to animal control and got traps and then once the traps were full we would call them and the would come pick them up. We also managed to catch squirrels and a racoon. Thankfully no skunks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 I despise groundhogs. They dig under the fence and eat my peas, squash, tomatoes, carrot tops, etc. They make holes in our neighbor's paddocks (for the horses to break their legs in) and dig under their barns. What pests! This week we've trapped and shot four of them of all sizes. There was another one next to the garden this morning. I wouldn't mind them if they would just stay out of the fence! My first recommendation is to borrow a havaheart trap, catch it (probably them), transport it to a friend's house in the country, shoot it, and bury it. PLEASE do not trap it and transport it somewhere else to be someone else's problem! Traps are easy to bait. Cut an apple in half and smear peanut butter on the cut side. Save the other half to use for the next one. Wrap a rubber band securely around the apple, then tie it to the top of the trap just beyond or over the trigger. Set the trap and position it in the groundhog's path (they are creatures of habit and usually travel the same way). The trap should be placed so the groundhog is likely to walk "up" the small ramp formed by the set trigger. Groundhogs especially like peaches, but they are more tricky to tie to the trap. I wouldn't waste a good peach on a groundhog anyway. If you really, really can't get rid of the groundhog for good, you can also pour used cat litter in its hole. It will probably leave and bother someone else. GardenMom I hate groundhogs, too! They killed several trees and would eat our flowers, etc. Very frustrating! We've used the poison bombs (light the fuse and throw it down the hole) and they worked pretty well. But I see you don't want to use poison. We are in a new home and I've been noticing smaller holes around the yard; voles, maybe? I'll have to try out the used kitty litter trick, I haven't heard of that one before. Thanks GardenMom! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarfoot Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 I read somewhere on the Internet (so, you know, it must be true) that if you put some of those pinwheel things in your garden, they'll stay away. Something about the motion . . . THIS! We had a horrible problem with this when I was a teen. I took care of our yard, and it was driving me nuts. My mom and I went to the hardware store to get something, and when the man showed us the traps, I about fainted. :glare: I couldn't imagine poison, either, and then he mentioned the blowing pinwheel flower. :) We put it in the ground near his "work", and he was gone very quickly. Amazing... Ours was a sunflower-- a brown center with yellow petals that circled in the wind.:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHASRADA Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 Put chicken wire around your garden and leave the little cuties alone! ;) We have had a family of groundhogs living under our deck and our shed for years. The kids get such a kick out of watching them from our sliding door. We saw an adult out with 3 precious little furry babies in the spring, and sometimes they even make it half way up the stairs before they notice us and scurry off. They are intriguing for my tutoring students as well when they spy them out the window. We don't have any pets, so these little guys sort of serve that purpose for us. They are sooo cuuuute! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissel Posted June 24, 2012 Author Share Posted June 24, 2012 (edited) Put chicken wire around your garden and leave the little cuties alone! ;) We have had a family of groundhogs living under our deck and our shed for years. The kids get such a kick out of watching them from our sliding door. We saw an adult out with 3 precious little furry babies in the spring, and sometimes they even make it half way up the stairs before they notice us and scurry off. They are intriguing for my tutoring students as well when they spy them out the window. We don't have any pets, so these little guys sort of serve that purpose for us. They are sooo cuuuute! Ugh, if you could see the size of the hole it made under my fence this morning, you'd know that chicken wire means nothing at all. Plus, they can climb--ever seen one scale a chain link fence? We have friends who have trapped and released 5 or 6 so far and are still trying to trap the last one. They have chain link around their own large garden, and still the groundhogs destroyed the majority of their spring plants :( My own petless kids are enchanted with this thing too, but thankfully, they know the garden matters more after the incredible amount of work and money my husband put into it this past spring (of course, they also know that I'll do my best not to kill it if I don't have to). I love to feed and enjoy nature's creatures as much as anyone, but feeding my own creatures comes first, unfortunately. ETA: I'm sorry, I realized that my tone here might have come across as snarky toward you, and I truly don't mean it to. I'm terribly frustrated by the whole situation, especially after watching my friend go through the wringer with her critters and thinking, "Thank goodness we only have those darn squirrels." Of course I jinxed myself with that one! I almost started crying when I saw it in the yard yesterday *sigh* Anyway, if there's any tone conveyed in my post, it's toward the critters and not you. Heck, if we didn't have a garden, I'd probably let it stay. Then again, if we didn't have a garden, it probably wouldn't be here :glare: Edited June 24, 2012 by melissel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissel Posted June 24, 2012 Author Share Posted June 24, 2012 Thanks for all the advice, everyone. I'll gladly start with the pinwheels and go up in intensity from there. It also never even occurred to me to call animal control once we trap it--I'll give them a call on Monday and see what they say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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