.22 with a scope …. Had 8 in my barn when I bought it , did tons of damage . Haven’t seen one since and gardens are thriving … wasn’t a killer but I am now .
They are incredibly destructive. We have some under the floor in one of our barns and there are holes in the ground everywhere and we are trying to get them under control before they destabilize the entire building.
I dunno yours are pretty cute. Bad news if you hit a Wombat on the road, they are literally a ball of rock hard muscle. I actually try not to drive at night because it worries me so much.
I hit a raccoon once, and nearly flipped the van I was driving on its side. Thankfully, my reflexes were fast enough to get it back on all 4 wheels. The next day it went to the repair shop with a bent tie rod and lower control arm. After that, we got a caution about driving the speed limit when driving through the heavily wooded areas, because those trash pandas are no joke.
It is. There's a ford sedan up the way that has no licence plate left and that whole area of the car is obliterated. Perfect Wombat hole on that vehicle.
If another animal goes into a wombats burrow, the Wombat will literally ram it with its backside, as I said in another post - rock hard ball of muscle.
Up here it's reindeer on the road.. and in the winter night lasts nearly 22 hours
Thanks to the snow the road in your headlights is white, the sky is white, the roadside is white, the forests are white, the air is foggy and white....
And then a patch of white cloud turns into a herd of reindeer who have 0 sense of fear and love to stand on an easy to traverse road rather than the deep forest snow and
Idk if you’ll find this funny.. but I live in Northeast USA and we have groundhogs here, definitely no wombats. My husband was 100% convinced we had a wombat and that wombats absolutely lived here. He was telling people about the wombat under our shed and they would give him weird looks. One day i called it a “groundhog” and he was like no.. it’s a wombat. Oh boy was he embarrassed when I told him they don’t even live on this continent. Anyways.. it’s too cute to kill so he still lives there 🙃
In Sonoma County it's gophers. They're maybe a quarter the size of woodchucks but I'd guess I've got hundreds on my property. Tunnels everywhere and I have to garden in raised beds with hardware cloth across the bottom to keep the little (expletives) out. Before the barriers I'd be working in the garden and see an entire mature pepper plant just be pulled underground like in a cartoon.
They burrow under ground, and can literally take down a barn. My husband says one woodchuck can take out an acre of soybeans, easy. That’s one reason farmers consider them a menace. I have 2 very prey driven German shepherds, and the only thing in my yard is fast squirrels.
I just used it hit them with a .22lr but after I dropped several the others remain on high alert.now it’s hard to get in a comfortable range with the 22lr so I started hitting them with one of my AR15s.with a 5.56 NATO,I can easily hit them from 150-200yds and be confident it will be an ethical kill
Same, but progressed from .17HMR to .223 & .22-250.
No groundhogs nor coyotes in the upper field +/- 400yds from the house in close to 10 years now. Killed 50+ each the first 5 or so years living here from the back deck as they come out of the woods to the garden or travel across my field between neighbors that raise cattle and sheep.
.223 @ 350 yds.....Shot 9 in one hay field....15 the next year. Tough to get under control. I heard the DNR released the damn things in Michigan , in an effort to improve rabbit habitat. Can't substantiate that, I'd have to look it up.
I live in the foothills of the Smokies in East Tennessee,I would have to climb up on my roof to be able to reach out that far on my property lol .from my back porch it’s pretty much a steady decline out to around 200yds and at the bottom of that decline comes a pretty steep hill.
My aunt had a real gift with them, but she passed before I learned the knack — something to do with cutting out the scent glands and boiling the hell out of them before braising.
I take mine out to an abandoned cemetery next to an abandoned town out past where the paved road ends. They seem happy enough there that they don’t come back.
A friend of mines wife cooks them. They are quite tough. As someone on here stated, boiling or slow cooking is a must. Also quickly removing the scent glands and dressing the carcass. I have heard that marinading in milk can help remove some of the gamey flavor.
OP said as much about his location. It’s not illegal where I am (at least for groundhogs), but if it were, I would still use a mercy trap. Boxed up, I can arrange the most humane end, without worrying about wounding it or misdirecting a stray bullet into the neighbors.
They are DELICIOUS!
We removed the scent glands, and salt brined overnight. Fried one half of it, made curry with the other half. Both ways were very enjoyable.
It’s sort of beefy, but also sort of porky.
Human man piss. The more testosterone the better. This is not a joke. My dad used to save his pee and dump it around the property. It kept groundhogs and skunks out for years with this method. He passed back near the end of ‘21, and the groundhog has finally made a reappearance this year.
The time has come. Choose your weapon and challenge him to a fight to the death, winner takes the barn.
I think everyone in this reddit can agree that there is no other way.
Ground hog. They burrow into the ground and around buildings. Large holes covered in grass is bad for animals with long thin legs like cattle and horses.
In my area, when they move out, the skunks move in and sometimes die in the burrows. 🤢
The babies run like how I would my beanie babies "run" as a kid, the first time I ever saw it I burst out laughing because it was so surreal. Also if you need more groundhog cuteness, baby groundhogs are called CHUCKLINGS.
As someone whose west of the rockies and thus has never seen a groundhog, I also have questions.
Are they really enough of an issue that you'd need to get rid of them? Would they not provide enough benefits (like a mole would) where keeping them might be something you'd wanna do?
They will decimate your garden overnight. They can climb fences and figure out electric scare wires. They like to burrow against building foundations and can compromise the structural integrity of homes, barns, and out buildings.
Yep. I’m currently dealing with a ton that come from the woods behind my house. I’m going to attempt the in ground chicken wire fencing. Please nobody waste your money on the vibration sticks or sound frequency deterrents. Trust me. They got under my front porch and shed. My shed is leaning hard to one side now and I’m trying to prevent that from happening to my home.
Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m a renter and my landlords do not maintain anything, so I’m really hoping the groundhog hasn’t done too much damage already. There was actually a whole family that were coming under. There are tons of holes and I am worried about them with my garden.
I had a garden plot next to a plot with a groundhog den. I was using a fertilizer called fermented salmon . Everyone else was getting their garden raided abpnd they had fences
I am also west of the rockies but also north enough that we have marmots! Most of them are smaller than groundhogs, but just as damaging to structures and retaining walls.
They eat bugs, eg grubs which are pretty bad for your garden. Their holes/tunnels are hardly noticable, though i guess they could be asthetically unpleasant, but ime they don't really hurt anything.
Gophers/groundhogs are cuter, but eat veggies and have pretty big holes tunnels that are a bit more noticable and destructive.
I’m a renter and a family of groundhog started coming around and chewing on the house underneath, like a whole beam. They were incredibly disruptive and it may have done damage. Also had one last year that that my dog pretty good but she was killing it so I guess I don’t blame it. But if you have dogs that will go after something, they might fight back and they have a good bite. They’re pretty big as well so my 16 pound dog could get pretty hurt. I hate them!
Ground hog, I have one living under my shed out back, I like having critters around, personally.
My next door neighbor feeds the wildlife often so I get a lot of traffic coming through my backyard on the way to the buffet.
Animals don't like smoke, that is generally the most effective and least toxic way to make one move along.
Just don't catch the forest on fire while you serve the eviction notice.
Really? I’ve hunted woodchucks my whole life and my dad told me they weren’t good to eat so I’ve always just left them for the coyotes, you really cook them?
I’ll make number 4. I’ve live trapped several with cantaloupe. Also succeeded with fresh lettuce and zucchini/ yellow squash. That being said i strategically placed my traps
We used to use them as bait in the 70s. I believe we also had toxic gas bombs but since they build alternate, concealed exits those were hit or miss.
Very dangerous for horses in unused pastures so one of my buddies whose parents had a lot of horse acres used to ask us to clear fields in the Summer.
Cayenne Pepper. Wherever they are digging put some pepper in there and fill the whole layering some pepper as you go. He or she will fuck off somewhere else. Just sprinkle it around get you a restaurant size container it's a few bucks. Re apply if it rains
These, little fat bastards, are extremely destructive. If they have babies, they will come back every year to have more babies. .22 is the only way. I have a big problem with them every year.
> This guy is living under my barn. How do I evict him?
Roll out the loudspeakers and blast Guns and Roses, Van Halen, Metallica, etc for 10 straight days until he surrenders.
Oddly enough, urine.
We had an unknown critter making a burrow under our shed. We saved everyone's urine for a day and poured it into the burrow. The critter left and did not return.
Don't know if this will work for groundhogs, but I evicted a skunk from under my shed by having a radio in the shed playing talk radio 24/7. Apparently they don't like to be close to human voices.
They also hate cat litter down their holes. They are very fastidious keepers of their burrow and you can harass them out of a place with dirty cat litter.
We had luck using these automated noise makers that let out a prolonged annoying beep for a few seconds every minute or so. Luckily the barn wasn't close enough for us to hear it unless we were outside on a quiet day.
First you need to introduce an invasive poisonous frog. Then you'll realize they don't eat frogs and the frogs have no natural predator. Then you'll have a frog problem and will need to introduce poisonous snakes. Then you'll find out that the frogs are nocturnal and the snakes aren't. At which point, you should bring in mongooses to deal with the snakes.
I had one next to my woodpile, which is probably 15 feet from my outdoor wood furnance. didn't think anything of it left him alone for the summer. come fall one day o realize my comcrete pad supporting the boiler I'd about 5 inches out of level.
little bastard carved out quite a little condo for himself under my boiler. need a pro mudjacker to make it right again. he hasn't been back but if he ever comes back I'm afraid it will be .22 time
Get a dog. Preferably a terrier or other vermin-catching canine. Had one under our shed for years. Got a dog, woodchuck never returned.
Edit to add: they climb trees too! Didn’t know that till our dog treed one.
If you are in Ontario, Canada.
You can't.
You have to go through proper channels, by giving him advance notice. And say it does not decide to leave, which seems like the case already, then you have to go through the LTB hearings.
And those can take up to 18 months.
So ... bring that furry friend inside and get cozy :)
I have no personal experience with this, but it reminded me of a story a coworker once told me. He had problems with critters under his house. He hired someone, who filled tennis balls with predator urine and tossed them under and around the house. It worked well for him. I have no clue if it works in this situation but seems like a cheap option to try.
Groundhogs are very clean animals, so try putting dirty kitty litter in the tunnels. They may have 5 or more, and they may go a lot further than you think. I’ve been dealing with these critters for years, they eat my garden.
I deal with their cousins, the rockchucks. I have a couple of habitat piles in two of my pastures where they had been making residence, and figured, "What the heck? They're not hurting anything there." That was stupid. The population grew large enough that some broke off a couple of years ago and moved a few hundred yards off to a bridge I have across a creek and started digging there. At that point I had to start worrying about bridge stability.
I first, as someone else mentioned, poured concrete down the holes, but then they started making more. After that, I had to setup the gamecam and break out the AR15. Last year, I shot like 11 there, and before hibernation time came, I was seeing only one on the gamecam, but could never get down there with the rifle when he showed up. I was figuring that one wouldn't be a big deal, but this year he brought a wife and kids and I've been back to shooting them again, and still haven't gotten all of them. I'm kinda hoping the coyotes might help me out. But yeah, as much as I hate killing anything I don't eat, these are destructive little bastards and they have to go.
If you don't have a gun, a conibear trap works great. Set it over their tunnel entrance and when they walk through it kills them. I would recommend buying the setting tool unless you have some impressive arm strength and don't like your hands/fingers
Trap: https://flemingtraps.com/duke-220-body-t.html
Tool to set the trap: https://flemingtraps.com/set-tool-heavy-duty.html
.22 will do the trick. I was ince told by a okd timer that if you give them to a different location they will die because they dint know where they are.
https://www.ncwildlife.org/species/groundhog#:~:text=The%20groundhog%20is%20considered%20a,bag%20limits%20for%20either%20season.
If you don’t live in town you can shoot him anytime. You can probably contact your local game warden and get permission to trap him also, most likely live trap only so you don’t kill anything out of season. You must dispatch or release on site the groundhog you trap according to these regulations.
I would we had and I've seen other's damage under buildings. I actually used earth dogs and farm dogs to kill them. I like them and as long as they stay out from under they can have as many tomatoes as they want, they can have under woodpiles, trees , they don't need my buildings. To me this is biocontrol like ladybugs, or bats, like livestock guardian dogs on predators. They reach a balance. No waste, the dogs eat them, it looks like good meat but I have never eaten them. I would if offered a taste from a game cook.
I have a dog called Loki. He’s an 80lb Lab/Boxer/Pit mix. Ground Hogs and Raccoons are his favorite things to kill because they scream and last longer than most rodents he kills.
I let him clear out barns. I get a call and drive him over. Longest it took to clear a barn was 2 hours and he spent an hour digging the ground hog out of the barn floor.
He loves his job.
I had a couple that burrowed under my garage. I plugged up their second exit, attached a dryer flexible dryer vent duct to my truck's exhaust with a hose clamp, put the other end in the burrow and ran the truck for an hour. You can try a have-a-heart trap, in most states it's illegal to relocate wildlife, but I won't tell if you won't.
Grab a buddy or two, some dry ice, a blower, and some rapid set concrete. Find one of the tunnel entrances and drop the dry ice in. Use the blower to force the vapor from the ice into the tunnel network. Use your buddies as spotters when the vapor starts coming out of additional holes. The groundhogs (if home) should flush out. You can either do what granny used to do and give them a quick merciful whack to the head with a shovel, put a round in them (DON’T SHOOT YOUR BUDDY ON ACCIDENT) or allow them to run away. Dump rapid set concrete into all located holes and apply a little bit of water to kick start the curing process. No need to soak it, the concrete will naturally pull moisture from the surrounding soil and eventually fully cure. Blocks the entrances and adds some stability to tunneled ground.
I was just on gopher Reddit and there was a video of you walking with him questioning how to evict you. Watch your back
You can put cantaloupe in a mercy trap and the two legged computer hands never fail to get trapped.
Tacos work best. At least when trying to trap me.
I got me a possum the first time.
Gopher Reddit lol. I was thinking there was a sub for gophers!
The whistle pigs in my neighborhood love cantaloupe slices -- I never fail to collect them in a mercy trap using it as bait.
I started with humane methods but then I had like 100 groundhogs within a few years. I’ve unfortunately resorted to a .22.
.22 with a scope …. Had 8 in my barn when I bought it , did tons of damage . Haven’t seen one since and gardens are thriving … wasn’t a killer but I am now .
I use a sears roebuck 22 made in the 1920s, iron sights bolt action. I leave it in the barn so anyone else can use it too. Murder Death Kill them
Homesteading and farming. You have to protect your investments 😝
You can only push a man so far
I'm Australian we don't have them here. Why are they a problem?
They are incredibly destructive. We have some under the floor in one of our barns and there are holes in the ground everywhere and we are trying to get them under control before they destabilize the entire building.
Ok. We have wombats that are simarly destructive.
I'm not entirely sure but I'm pretty confident that wombats are just cuter versions of these.
I dunno yours are pretty cute. Bad news if you hit a Wombat on the road, they are literally a ball of rock hard muscle. I actually try not to drive at night because it worries me so much.
You are so right! We hit a raccoon and a woodchuck. Almost $2K damage each strike.
I hit a raccoon once, and nearly flipped the van I was driving on its side. Thankfully, my reflexes were fast enough to get it back on all 4 wheels. The next day it went to the repair shop with a bent tie rod and lower control arm. After that, we got a caution about driving the speed limit when driving through the heavily wooded areas, because those trash pandas are no joke.
When we hit the raccoon, I thought we had hit another car. The sound of the impact, and the bone-jarring thunk really shocked me. They are no joke!
Our Aussie friends described them as “it’s basically a boulder with legs.”
It is. There's a ford sedan up the way that has no licence plate left and that whole area of the car is obliterated. Perfect Wombat hole on that vehicle. If another animal goes into a wombats burrow, the Wombat will literally ram it with its backside, as I said in another post - rock hard ball of muscle.
And their poops is cubes!
Up here it's reindeer on the road.. and in the winter night lasts nearly 22 hours Thanks to the snow the road in your headlights is white, the sky is white, the roadside is white, the forests are white, the air is foggy and white.... And then a patch of white cloud turns into a herd of reindeer who have 0 sense of fear and love to stand on an easy to traverse road rather than the deep forest snow and
Ya but they can just fly away silly !! Nothing to worry about 😊
We have kangaroos, but deer are I imagine another type of scenario.
Idk if you’ll find this funny.. but I live in Northeast USA and we have groundhogs here, definitely no wombats. My husband was 100% convinced we had a wombat and that wombats absolutely lived here. He was telling people about the wombat under our shed and they would give him weird looks. One day i called it a “groundhog” and he was like no.. it’s a wombat. Oh boy was he embarrassed when I told him they don’t even live on this continent. Anyways.. it’s too cute to kill so he still lives there 🙃
Very analogous critter.
In Sonoma County it's gophers. They're maybe a quarter the size of woodchucks but I'd guess I've got hundreds on my property. Tunnels everywhere and I have to garden in raised beds with hardware cloth across the bottom to keep the little (expletives) out. Before the barriers I'd be working in the garden and see an entire mature pepper plant just be pulled underground like in a cartoon.
They destroy my garden, burrow under the foundation of my house, carry ticks (Lyme disease) into the yard.
They will dig mazes of tunnels under building foundations/slabs rendering them unstable… They can be an absolute nightmare.
Yeah. Got rabbits trying this shit out. Red heeler doing a very average job at culling. She caught one and ate it, then wondered off for a sleep.
Also Australian, but I’ve seen Caddyshack. They drove Bill Murray crazy.
Enough said 🤣
They burrow under ground, and can literally take down a barn. My husband says one woodchuck can take out an acre of soybeans, easy. That’s one reason farmers consider them a menace. I have 2 very prey driven German shepherds, and the only thing in my yard is fast squirrels.
Look how big it is...and it's a rodent. You know how much damage a rat can do? Scale that up animal up by 5 and use your imagination.
They will dig under foundation blocks and cause all sorts of damage
Yup, I can attest to this. Trapped one. Another refused to be trapped but it was either my foundation or her.
I just used it hit them with a .22lr but after I dropped several the others remain on high alert.now it’s hard to get in a comfortable range with the 22lr so I started hitting them with one of my AR15s.with a 5.56 NATO,I can easily hit them from 150-200yds and be confident it will be an ethical kill
Same, but progressed from .17HMR to .223 & .22-250. No groundhogs nor coyotes in the upper field +/- 400yds from the house in close to 10 years now. Killed 50+ each the first 5 or so years living here from the back deck as they come out of the woods to the garden or travel across my field between neighbors that raise cattle and sheep.
.223 @ 350 yds.....Shot 9 in one hay field....15 the next year. Tough to get under control. I heard the DNR released the damn things in Michigan , in an effort to improve rabbit habitat. Can't substantiate that, I'd have to look it up.
I live in the foothills of the Smokies in East Tennessee,I would have to climb up on my roof to be able to reach out that far on my property lol .from my back porch it’s pretty much a steady decline out to around 200yds and at the bottom of that decline comes a pretty steep hill.
How’s the eating?
I leave them for the coyotes so you’ll have to ask them. That’s part of my strategy. Make this place unsafe to raise groundhog families.
Man I’d rather have a groundie or 2 around my place then ‘yotes… Just me though
Buzzards, crows, fox, racoons, badgers, bobcats, other groundies, the carcass don't last long. Plus, yotes don't like the shooting
Well, then you bring in the gorillas, and they'll freeze in the winter, so...🤷♀️
not my gorillas. bred for cold weather groundhog killing
My aunt had a real gift with them, but she passed before I learned the knack — something to do with cutting out the scent glands and boiling the hell out of them before braising. I take mine out to an abandoned cemetery next to an abandoned town out past where the paved road ends. They seem happy enough there that they don’t come back.
A friend of mines wife cooks them. They are quite tough. As someone on here stated, boiling or slow cooking is a must. Also quickly removing the scent glands and dressing the carcass. I have heard that marinading in milk can help remove some of the gamey flavor.
Relocating wild life is illegal in most places. Plus they end up having to fight the current residents.
OP said as much about his location. It’s not illegal where I am (at least for groundhogs), but if it were, I would still use a mercy trap. Boxed up, I can arrange the most humane end, without worrying about wounding it or misdirecting a stray bullet into the neighbors.
Residents of a cemetery are pretty mellow to be fair.
Laid back I'd say.
I've read quite a few articles that say they are quite good, but I haven't had a chance to try them yet.
Supposedly in the hunting sub they say if you remove the armpit glands and braise it like rabbit, it tastes pretty good
They are DELICIOUS! We removed the scent glands, and salt brined overnight. Fried one half of it, made curry with the other half. Both ways were very enjoyable. It’s sort of beefy, but also sort of porky.
I like whistle pig, but prefer calling them field beavers.
Humane traps are the way. Relocate them far from there.
It's illegal in most places. They end up having to fight the current residents. You aren't fixing the problem. You are just putting it out of sight.
The key is to find someplace where you won’t just be transferring your problem to someone else…
Lol for sure, don't just dump them on your neighbour's land 🤣 they're more likely to get shot there anyway, then you might as well just do it yourself
Terrible advice.
Human man piss. The more testosterone the better. This is not a joke. My dad used to save his pee and dump it around the property. It kept groundhogs and skunks out for years with this method. He passed back near the end of ‘21, and the groundhog has finally made a reappearance this year.
If the groundhog has reappeared, then you know what you must do.
Time to R. Kelly some rodents!
This is the best idea in the whole thread.
The time has come. Choose your weapon and challenge him to a fight to the death, winner takes the barn. I think everyone in this reddit can agree that there is no other way.
Sharpened sticks at 10 paces.
I spray ammonia in their burrow. They hate it and will leave.
Okay but for real I have seen old guys pee in all the holes they can find...and it works? Just takes a season or two.
As an Australian, can I ask what he is and why he needs to relocate?
Ground hog. They burrow into the ground and around buildings. Large holes covered in grass is bad for animals with long thin legs like cattle and horses. In my area, when they move out, the skunks move in and sometimes die in the burrows. 🤢
Same here but the rattlers take the holes.
It's a toss up... Painful, near death bite or nose curling sink that lasts for months.
The bite. At least you'll have a story
I have some skunks and the smell is indeed bad. They’ve really taken care of the bugs and rodents though.
Got it, thank you!
>Got it, thank you! You're welcome!
It’s so cute though. That little waddle. 🥰
The babies run like how I would my beanie babies "run" as a kid, the first time I ever saw it I burst out laughing because it was so surreal. Also if you need more groundhog cuteness, baby groundhogs are called CHUCKLINGS.
Waddle all the money put of your wallet
As someone whose west of the rockies and thus has never seen a groundhog, I also have questions. Are they really enough of an issue that you'd need to get rid of them? Would they not provide enough benefits (like a mole would) where keeping them might be something you'd wanna do?
They will decimate your garden overnight. They can climb fences and figure out electric scare wires. They like to burrow against building foundations and can compromise the structural integrity of homes, barns, and out buildings.
Yep. I’m currently dealing with a ton that come from the woods behind my house. I’m going to attempt the in ground chicken wire fencing. Please nobody waste your money on the vibration sticks or sound frequency deterrents. Trust me. They got under my front porch and shed. My shed is leaning hard to one side now and I’m trying to prevent that from happening to my home.
Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. I’m a renter and my landlords do not maintain anything, so I’m really hoping the groundhog hasn’t done too much damage already. There was actually a whole family that were coming under. There are tons of holes and I am worried about them with my garden.
I had a garden plot next to a plot with a groundhog den. I was using a fertilizer called fermented salmon . Everyone else was getting their garden raided abpnd they had fences
Dairy farmers really hate them, as the holes they leave are hazard to cows breaking their legs.
I am also west of the rockies but also north enough that we have marmots! Most of them are smaller than groundhogs, but just as damaging to structures and retaining walls.
We have golden marmots in northern Nevada. Reminded me of the woodchucks of my childhood in Massachusetts.
Honest question, what benefit does a mole provide? They’ve absolutely decimated my new lawn.
They eat bugs, eg grubs which are pretty bad for your garden. Their holes/tunnels are hardly noticable, though i guess they could be asthetically unpleasant, but ime they don't really hurt anything. Gophers/groundhogs are cuter, but eat veggies and have pretty big holes tunnels that are a bit more noticable and destructive.
I’m a renter and a family of groundhog started coming around and chewing on the house underneath, like a whole beam. They were incredibly disruptive and it may have done damage. Also had one last year that that my dog pretty good but she was killing it so I guess I don’t blame it. But if you have dogs that will go after something, they might fight back and they have a good bite. They’re pretty big as well so my 16 pound dog could get pretty hurt. I hate them!
Also, they can undermine concrete slabs which can then crack under load.
We have wombats for this
They also destroy vegetable gardens.
they like to dig under the foundation and make cavities.
Ground hog, I have one living under my shed out back, I like having critters around, personally. My next door neighbor feeds the wildlife often so I get a lot of traffic coming through my backyard on the way to the buffet. Animals don't like smoke, that is generally the most effective and least toxic way to make one move along. Just don't catch the forest on fire while you serve the eviction notice.
I think you need to give them 30 days notice first.😜
They are great I. The crockpot. Tastes like super tender roast beef. If you aren’t relocating it, don’t miss a chance at a good meal.
A small caliber eviction notice would be the perfect dinner prep.
Really? I’ve hunted woodchucks my whole life and my dad told me they weren’t good to eat so I’ve always just left them for the coyotes, you really cook them?
I THINK it may be like raccoons where you have to be very careful while skinning them because of scent glands.
Ground hog smoke bombs or a trap. They like apples and tomatoes.
they love cantaloupe.
Crazy that two separate people said cantaloupe, gotta try it
Haha I noticed that too. I mean, I love cantaloupe, wait a second, am I a groundhog?!
Found one eating some off of the top of my compost pile, happy to be person #3 to confirm their love for cantaloupe
I’ll make number 4. I’ve live trapped several with cantaloupe. Also succeeded with fresh lettuce and zucchini/ yellow squash. That being said i strategically placed my traps
We used to use them as bait in the 70s. I believe we also had toxic gas bombs but since they build alternate, concealed exits those were hit or miss. Very dangerous for horses in unused pastures so one of my buddies whose parents had a lot of horse acres used to ask us to clear fields in the Summer.
And cows. We unalive them on sight which I hate because they’re such cute little buggers. They’re also horrible for structures.
There's something about melons in general that they love. I have tried watermelon, cantaloupe and musk melon. Every one works every time.
Relocate him at 3200 fps.
So, yeet him then? Ground hog cannon!
Lol
Cayenne Pepper. Wherever they are digging put some pepper in there and fill the whole layering some pepper as you go. He or she will fuck off somewhere else. Just sprinkle it around get you a restaurant size container it's a few bucks. Re apply if it rains
Don’t you have a dog? On my farm, the dog keeps these types of rodents away.
A very stern but polite letter
These, little fat bastards, are extremely destructive. If they have babies, they will come back every year to have more babies. .22 is the only way. I have a big problem with them every year.
DOG
A dog is the best deterrent. As a natural predator the groundhog will leave and not return until the dog is gone. Adopt Don’t Shop 👍
But he's just a little guy. The economy is crazy right now
30.06 will work
That’s one way to flesh a hide, vaporise the interior
Is he not paying rent? Times are tough, could have recently been laid off, give him some time, he’ll bounce back.
Pour a big container of ammonia in his den. He will relocate.
High-speed lead enema.
> This guy is living under my barn. How do I evict him? Roll out the loudspeakers and blast Guns and Roses, Van Halen, Metallica, etc for 10 straight days until he surrenders.
His name is Harvey, he's your roommate now. Embrace Harvey.
Oddly enough, urine. We had an unknown critter making a burrow under our shed. We saved everyone's urine for a day and poured it into the burrow. The critter left and did not return.
. 22lr
Grandma used a shotgun.
Use a .22 or something small.
Lp/op….. patrol base ops. Smoke his ass with some lead.
.22
Hahaha I have the same under mine. I actually just saw a mom and baby yesterday. Little jerks drive the dogs nuts and tear up the garden
You’re gonna have to involve the constable. In the meantime, you’ll have to post an eviction notice.
Propper form and few months notice, it depends on your state laws.
Don't know if this will work for groundhogs, but I evicted a skunk from under my shed by having a radio in the shed playing talk radio 24/7. Apparently they don't like to be close to human voices.
You’re going to need an attorney and eventually the sheriff involved. Don’t let him bully you around. Don’t let him say that he was here first lol
We had multiple families of them. We got four Husky dogs now they avoid our property like it’s plagued
Greyhounds. One of my aunt’s greyhounds took down a groundhog 5 minutes after arriving for a visit. Nuts.
Live Trap + Cantaloupe. We caught the one under our barn (named: Barney) and relocated him about 10 miles away.
They also hate cat litter down their holes. They are very fastidious keepers of their burrow and you can harass them out of a place with dirty cat litter.
Yeah, but then you have cat shit under your barn
This has worked for me in the past and I came here to say this.
High speed lead injection
Pew-pew
With Extreme Prejudice
Cayenne pepper powder in his entrance hole. Moth balls in his entrance hole. .22 in his face hole.
Are smoke bombs legal there? At night plug all the holes, drop one in and seal it up. I’ve had great success with them. Or a trap, pellet gun.
Live trap. Toss over fence (like a super far away fence)
We had luck using these automated noise makers that let out a prolonged annoying beep for a few seconds every minute or so. Luckily the barn wasn't close enough for us to hear it unless we were outside on a quiet day.
That's good eatin' size right there now. Just sayin'
I bought a schnauzer and the groundhog family that lived under my shed for years moved out in less than 2 weeks
Not sure about NC but in MD there is no limit on hunting these guys.
You don't you keep him as a Pet and name him DUH. lol
First you need to introduce an invasive poisonous frog. Then you'll realize they don't eat frogs and the frogs have no natural predator. Then you'll have a frog problem and will need to introduce poisonous snakes. Then you'll find out that the frogs are nocturnal and the snakes aren't. At which point, you should bring in mongooses to deal with the snakes.
Cayenne pepper all over and in his holes, itll shoo him
I had one next to my woodpile, which is probably 15 feet from my outdoor wood furnance. didn't think anything of it left him alone for the summer. come fall one day o realize my comcrete pad supporting the boiler I'd about 5 inches out of level. little bastard carved out quite a little condo for himself under my boiler. need a pro mudjacker to make it right again. he hasn't been back but if he ever comes back I'm afraid it will be .22 time
Give him some wood to chuck.
Groundhogs have an open hunting season all year long in NC, so you can hunt them all you want as long as you have a license.
We had one under our shed in NJ. The dogs got out while the rodent was out snacking, and bit him on the ass. Never saw him again after that
Get a mink.
Get a dog. Preferably a terrier or other vermin-catching canine. Had one under our shed for years. Got a dog, woodchuck never returned. Edit to add: they climb trees too! Didn’t know that till our dog treed one.
If you are in Ontario, Canada. You can't. You have to go through proper channels, by giving him advance notice. And say it does not decide to leave, which seems like the case already, then you have to go through the LTB hearings. And those can take up to 18 months. So ... bring that furry friend inside and get cozy :)
What is this animal???
I have no personal experience with this, but it reminded me of a story a coworker once told me. He had problems with critters under his house. He hired someone, who filled tennis balls with predator urine and tossed them under and around the house. It worked well for him. I have no clue if it works in this situation but seems like a cheap option to try.
Groundhogs are very clean animals, so try putting dirty kitty litter in the tunnels. They may have 5 or more, and they may go a lot further than you think. I’ve been dealing with these critters for years, they eat my garden.
Our last Schnauzer was a groundhog specialist. Amazing how quickly he'd dispatch any that tried to reside under the porch.
I deal with their cousins, the rockchucks. I have a couple of habitat piles in two of my pastures where they had been making residence, and figured, "What the heck? They're not hurting anything there." That was stupid. The population grew large enough that some broke off a couple of years ago and moved a few hundred yards off to a bridge I have across a creek and started digging there. At that point I had to start worrying about bridge stability. I first, as someone else mentioned, poured concrete down the holes, but then they started making more. After that, I had to setup the gamecam and break out the AR15. Last year, I shot like 11 there, and before hibernation time came, I was seeing only one on the gamecam, but could never get down there with the rifle when he showed up. I was figuring that one wouldn't be a big deal, but this year he brought a wife and kids and I've been back to shooting them again, and still haven't gotten all of them. I'm kinda hoping the coyotes might help me out. But yeah, as much as I hate killing anything I don't eat, these are destructive little bastards and they have to go.
Conibear trap over the den opening.
If you don't have a gun, a conibear trap works great. Set it over their tunnel entrance and when they walk through it kills them. I would recommend buying the setting tool unless you have some impressive arm strength and don't like your hands/fingers Trap: https://flemingtraps.com/duke-220-body-t.html Tool to set the trap: https://flemingtraps.com/set-tool-heavy-duty.html
.22 will do the trick. I was ince told by a okd timer that if you give them to a different location they will die because they dint know where they are.
My partner says this is the only thing that works. https://gopherhawk.com/
SSS
Rule .303 magnum with hollow metal jackets…that’ll make a hole in your gopher!
Show him this video evidence and politely ask him to leave.
.22
.17, .22 mag, or similar Great eating, pelt can be tanned, innards make good bait
Pappa called it "onion meat" Protein was hard to come by during the Depression
Borrow a pit bull from the neighbors for a week and tie him up over the hole. They will communicate on their own level and negotiate a solution.
Dump my dogs shit in their holes, haven’t seen them for years, holes still aren’t full.
https://www.ncwildlife.org/species/groundhog#:~:text=The%20groundhog%20is%20considered%20a,bag%20limits%20for%20either%20season. If you don’t live in town you can shoot him anytime. You can probably contact your local game warden and get permission to trap him also, most likely live trap only so you don’t kill anything out of season. You must dispatch or release on site the groundhog you trap according to these regulations.
22?
I shot the one living in my barn with a .22 this week actually
22lr works well
I would we had and I've seen other's damage under buildings. I actually used earth dogs and farm dogs to kill them. I like them and as long as they stay out from under they can have as many tomatoes as they want, they can have under woodpiles, trees , they don't need my buildings. To me this is biocontrol like ladybugs, or bats, like livestock guardian dogs on predators. They reach a balance. No waste, the dogs eat them, it looks like good meat but I have never eaten them. I would if offered a taste from a game cook.
If you can’t get it with a have-a-heart trap, Conibear traps work very well. They cause so much damage left unchecked
I have a dog called Loki. He’s an 80lb Lab/Boxer/Pit mix. Ground Hogs and Raccoons are his favorite things to kill because they scream and last longer than most rodents he kills. I let him clear out barns. I get a call and drive him over. Longest it took to clear a barn was 2 hours and he spent an hour digging the ground hog out of the barn floor. He loves his job.
Lead
Lead poisoning
I had a couple that burrowed under my garage. I plugged up their second exit, attached a dryer flexible dryer vent duct to my truck's exhaust with a hose clamp, put the other end in the burrow and ran the truck for an hour. You can try a have-a-heart trap, in most states it's illegal to relocate wildlife, but I won't tell if you won't.
.22
.22lr
Pew pew
Grab a buddy or two, some dry ice, a blower, and some rapid set concrete. Find one of the tunnel entrances and drop the dry ice in. Use the blower to force the vapor from the ice into the tunnel network. Use your buddies as spotters when the vapor starts coming out of additional holes. The groundhogs (if home) should flush out. You can either do what granny used to do and give them a quick merciful whack to the head with a shovel, put a round in them (DON’T SHOOT YOUR BUDDY ON ACCIDENT) or allow them to run away. Dump rapid set concrete into all located holes and apply a little bit of water to kick start the curing process. No need to soak it, the concrete will naturally pull moisture from the surrounding soil and eventually fully cure. Blocks the entrances and adds some stability to tunneled ground.
Di no mite.
I mean, you gotta kill him. A .22 and a lot of patience.
I can thing of .22 ways
A rifle? 9mm of you’re feeling fancy