Moved into our new place in Middle Tennessee (we pass by Dolly's Place to the interstate) and are on 36 acres. Loving it so far (we came from San Diego) to include the thunderstorms, cheap electricity, and ability to buy my wife a Ruger 10/22 with only a driver's license and 25 minute wait but...

Upon arrival I was finding burrows about 6"-9" in diameter on the property. Cool, wildlife.

But, also found a couple of them hole within 20 yards of the house and two under the foundation. Upon further investigation and watching, found out the larger diameter was ground hogs and the smaller was squirrel.

Those bastastages are now persona non grata on the cut/maintained portion of the 1.5 acre yard!! They are free to dine and roam the on other 35 acres though.

Oh, all deer and rabbit have a free pass. Rabbits are too scrawny and I am not yet set up to process deer.

Sounds lovely. Good luck with the critters.

One empathizes. Here, I have some kind of rodent making small holes everywhere. But the pest for the past 20 years have been deer. They eat anything we plant. Our yard looks forever barren and desolate.

Burrowing critters are a constant nuisance. Chipmunks and rockchucks here. Both cute and fun to watch, but will do major damage to your home. Put that 10/22 to good use and eradicate them. If you're a little more soft-hearted than I...a Havaheart trap baited with either cantalope (for the ground hogs/ rockchucks) or peanut butter with sunflower seeds for the chipmunks) will work. You still need to put them down though. Just don't take them down the road and release them to be someone else's problem.

For most of my life I have waged war against woodchucks.

Make a homemade rodenator - oxy-acetylente tanks and an ignitor. Fill holes with oxy-acetylene mixture, ignite, and blow the bastards to hell before they undermine any foundations or break any axles.

That reminds me, I spotted some suspicious piles of dirt next to the slab of my shop. Again.

I need to investigate that and more than likely dig out my hav-a-hart trap.

I don't relocate them, I give them a health checkup and a 40gr. lead injection. Easier to inject them if they're not running...

"Buzzards gotta eat too"
- Josey Wales

Groundhogs are a PITA to erradicate.
Although when I was working on my issue I was more in town where shooting them wasn't really safe.

quote:

Originally posted by Powers77:
Groundhogs are a PITA to erradicate.
Although when I was working on my issue I was more in town where shooting them wasn't really safe.

I can't discharge a firearm in my neighborhood.
Despite being old and slow, armed with a shovel I can usually get between a woodchuck and its shelter. I also have taken them out with a crossbow.

Ground hog, whistle pig (term I recently learned), woodchuck - these damn things are the most skittish animals I have ever seen.

Dang squirrels learn fast!! Now I understand why/how they were able to train a bunch of them for Charlie And The Chocolate Factory to work in Willy's nut processing room.

Two more tree rats to help keep the buzzards healthy

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
That reminds me, I spotted some suspicious piles of dirt next to the slab of my shop. Again.

I need to investigate that and more than likely dig out my hav-a-hart trap.

I don't relocate them, I give them a health checkup and a 40gr. lead injection. Easier to inject them if they're not running...

Same here. Live trap and a humane shot to the back of the head with a .22 air rifle. I'm in town so no discharge of firearms although I'm in a rural wooded area it would be safe I'm still in city limits. Had a terrible feral cat issue. No shelters were accepting any ferals and all the local farmers had more than they wanted. They are super wary to the point you will never get a clean shot with an air rifle. I didn't want to wound so that made it even more difficult. So the live trap method worked for a little while and then they figured out to stay away from those regardless of what tempting bait I would use.

All of a sudden I rarely see any, where before it was nothing to see six or eight at a time. Don't know if a predator moved through or someone else in the neighborhood got fed up with them and decided to poison. Now it's red squirrels up at the lake cabin. Equally hard to get a shot at but a little bait in the yard usually gets them to sit still long enough to get a shot. My sons camper was totaled out by the insurance company this year because the red squirrels moved in over the winter. Unbelievable the amount of damage they did.

Isn't this why high powered air rifles exist?

If I want to get rid of something, varmint, I usually resort to trapping, or similar methods. Trapping works 24/7, and can be much more covert than most shooting.

I had a skunk problem recently, just a matter of time before the dog was sprayed. One day I set 4, 220 conibear traps baited with a marshmallow. I used the marshmallow to reduce the chance of a non-target critter, no meat. I caught the skunk the 1st night. Of course I kept the dog on a leash while the traps were set.

For the most part as long as the critters are out a bit, I leave them alone. If they start to encroach on buildings, vehicles, or pets I look to take action.

What’s a good poison for squirrels? Asking for a friend.

I haven't seen any ground hogs in GA except the General Lee, growing up in MI they were a menace. Burrowing under foundations was a no no. I got pretty good at trapping them, people would hire me to handle it for them, mostly farmers

I leave the squirrels alone unless I see them on my house. I had a few get in the attic at my last house, handled that myself

What’s a good poison for squirrels? Asking for a friend.

Lead.

quote:

Originally posted by Jimineer:
What’s a good poison for squirrels? Asking for a friend.

Some form of ‘poisoned corn’ would likely work, but seemingly heavily regulated.

https://www.msdvetmanual.com/t...poisoning-in-animals

A 110 Conibear, set off the ground level would work, I’ve seen the utube videos.