How do you get rid of a groundhog?

[homeschoolmama]

This pesty one has even bitten a little "doorway" in our detached garage and has decided to live there! I hate to admit, that garage isn't used for a car but to store our junk and it's very easy for any animal (maybe even a bear!) to hide in. But the groundhog eats whatever veggies, etc. I try to grow.

How do you keep the critters away from your garden? Help?

 

[chilehed]

How squeamish are you?

You could get a big live-catch trap and then let it go somewhere a long way away. The risk is that you'll just give the problem to someone else.

You could set out poison and then hope it dies where you can't smell it (not likely). The risk is that something you don't want to get rid of will eat the bait as well.

Personally, I take advantage of the fact that they're good to eat and that in Michigan there's no closed season or bag limit on them. All you need is a small game license and you can harvest as many as you like. "The Joy of Cooking" has instructions on how to dress them, and a couple of recipies. I'm sure that there are more on-line.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Try putting out a bunch of sticky traps. I caught some rather large rats with them the stuff on them seems to numb their legs so they cannot move and makes it hard for them. I had 5 large mice/rats that ignored all the traps I had but got em all with the sticky traps although I had to finish them off the traps don't kill them.

This pesty one has even bitten a little "doorway" in our detached garage and has decided to live there! I hate to admit, that garage isn't used for a car but to store our junk and it's very easy for any animal (maybe even a bear!) to hide in. But the groundhog eats whatever veggies, etc. I try to grow.

How do you keep the critters away from your garden? Help?

 

[homeschoolmama]

I'm not going to eat this groundhog. I'm actually allergic to meat. My 7 year old has talked about "hunting it down and eating it." She's a riot!

I'm very squeamish. I throw up when my cats do.

This ground hog is pretty big - bigger than some cats I see around here. :o

 

[Savedsis]

I'm not going to eat this groundhog. I'm actually allergic to meat. My 7 year old has talked about "hunting it down and eating it." She's a riot!

I'm very squeamish. I throw up when my cats do.

This ground hog is pretty big - bigger than some cats I see around here. :o

Oh my...My husband got a trap and caught 2 coons and once to our dismay a skunk.....It died ..before he could do anything with it..They think a heart attack..The raccoons he took way out in the woods..

 

[WarEagle]

Oh my...My husband got a trap and caught 2 coons and once to our dismay a skunk.....It died ..before he could do anything with it..They think a heart attack..The raccoons he took way out in the woods..

We have a trap to catch cats with and we often get groundhogs in it.

That's probably your best bet.

 

[homeschoolmama]

We have a trap to catch cats with and we often get groundhogs in it.

That's probably your best bet.

I'm almost afraid to ask - why do you catch cats? I'm not judging you but fearing the worst.

 

[WarEagle]

I'm almost afraid to ask - why do you catch cats? I'm not judging you but fearing the worst.

We had a serious feral cat problem, caused by cat owners letting their cats stay out all night, getting pregnant, and then dropping the kittens off in the woods near our farm.

The cats killed all of our songbirds, would destroy crops, and crawl into the barn, workshop and occasionally under our porch where they would urinate and create the worst smell you can imagine.

They had to go and, frankly, the ammo bill was getting pretty high.

We stopped counting the number we caught in the traps at 34. That doesn't count the two dozen or so dispatched by other means".

 

[homeschoolmama]

You don't kill them, do you?

 

[WarEagle]

You don't kill them, do you?

OK. Here's the thing. Yes, I killed a lot of them.

I know that it's probably in bad taste for me to joke about killing them, but you have to understand that we tried trapping them and the pound wouldn't even take most of them because they said that they have some wierd respiratory disease and had to be destroyed.

It got to the point where so many of them were so sick that when I pulled up at the shelter, they didn't even look up from the front desk. They just said "take them around back" (to the incinerator).

Yes, I know it sounds cruel, but for most of them, killing them was the only thing we could do and, in most cases, it was the most humane thing, because they were only going to get sicker and sicker until they died in a lot of pain.

As for the healthy ones, the shelters got so swamped with them that they eventually started to put the healthy ones down because there's just not enough homes for them.

This came to me from a family friend who is on the board of the local SPCA.

 

[homeschoolmama]

That's shocking, and sad. You know there are a lot of no kill shelters too but probably not too many in your area?

 

[WarEagle]

That's shocking, and sad. You know there are a lot of no kill shelters too but probably not too many in your area?

There are some, but even "no kill" shelters will euthanize an animal when it is terminally ill and in such pain.