I am on the hunt for the critters that got to my six red leaf lettuce plants that I was about to harvest for salad. I had the pots on the ground one night! I had to move them so my son could mow. They got most of the plants of all six!! Didn't seem to bother with the seedlings in the pots just the mature plants. arrrggghhhhhh!!!
I want them to die a slow painful death!! Sigh.
Martha
Groundhog stew!!
DH has been shooting them out of the back field....never seen as many as I have this year!
Sorry to hear that, Martha. How aggravating.
Just this morning I saw 2 of them heading for the shrubs, I did a check on the internet and what I read,said to dump a dirty litter box in the tunnels if you can find them, I did find 1 tunnel and emptied the litter box in the hole and them put a cinder block to close the hole, I think the stench of cat pee & poo will send them into another county or at least I'm hoping. Good luck, I feel your pain :>)
Christine
Your farm supply centers have smoke bombs for a little more than a dollar apiece. These will work nicely even in close quarters with neighbors after dark. You simply light them like a firecracker and drop them in the hole.....then plug the hole with a feed bag or the runway soil.
If there is a back hole you did not see you will know where it is. Both smoke and the hog may appear in which case you may have to go to plan B another early AM or late PM. I find them very effective. Rarely if ever do they not work. Then dig and close the holes to determine if you have gotten the job done. Don't waste time during daylight with this approach. Mr. hog has to be home.
We have over 10 holes in the field.....DH sets the tripod up and waits. He's only got one so far....going to be a long summer.
Caddyshack!!
It's my fault. I have each of the salad pots up on a small table against this very sort of thing. They can reach the plants when the pots are on the ground but not when they are up two feet higher on the tables. Had I replaced the pots, i would have salad. I am mostly mad at myself. However, there will be stew should this offender cross my path.
Martha
i understand that they do not swim well wearing a have-a-heart-trap!
I caught 2 babies this year and one adult got killed in front of my house last week. I usually catch 3-5 babies a year.
Chipmuck body count is at 13, with two mouses. Average yearly totals are 35 chippy's and a dozen mice, and a couple red squirrels.
Mmmm, groundhog stew!
Found a dead, 15" rat in my friend's trash can. It got stuck in there and drowned. She lives near the river in Yonkers. Wish I wasn't around for the excavation! The garbage people wouldn't take it unless we removed it and put it in its own bag. Ugh!!!!!
We have to call the animal control officer to remove things like that and you do have to bag it up neatly so he doesn't touch it. The corpses go off to the state lab for testing for things like distemper, west nile virus, rabies, hanta virus, etc. We had to dispose of a dead skunk a couple of years back. I believe he just died of old age however, since the officer didn't get back to us about any nasty communicable diseases. The groundhog will be dead of slow, manual strangulation, should I catch it.
Martha
Does anybody really eat groundhog??
My oldest who takes all these primitive skills workshops. In the book, "Unmentionable Cuisine", by Calvin Schwabe, apparently anything you can do with rabbit or squirrel, you can do with groundhog. I'm game :). You clean it, I'll cook it!
L
Game is the right word, game-y!
Oh no..........bar-b-qued young ground hog is a delight to eat. In the early 1940's tight money and depression my mother cooked up anything my dad could bring in...leagal or otherwise. The word illeagle was just a sick bird. There were not so many laws and no game commisioner behind every tree. At that time any law enforcement person was likely looking for his dinner too. The old warriors hogs ....well there I agree not so good.
There are seven to nine "kernels", or scent glands that need to be removed. The older ones need to be parboiled, but the younger are mild and tender. I have recipes for fried, pattied and pie. Don't know if this will really help Martha though. At the rate Celeste's DH is going, they'll not have groundhog pie or a garden!
L
P.S. Venison chile with great northern beans for dinner here. That's South meets North for a rematch.
Argh.
It used to be when i chucked a rock at the woodchuck, it'd run away into the woods. Now it runs to see what the rock is. SOMEone has been feeding it.
Victor, my husband said the same thing! Got no dynamite, however.
Everyone else, I wanted to tend more towards vegetarianism with the lettuce rather than harvest the wildlife. We actually have deer, wild turkey and rabbit that I would rather eat than groundhog.
But they didn't attack my lettuce.
Martha
Martha get a have-a-heart-trap and move the beast.
If you want to pay a fee, the wildlife people (don;'t know the exact title) will trap them and take them away. We live in a small city so we can't shoot them (don't have anything to shoot them with anyway). We tried traping them but had no luck. They came in and set 5 traps and when we had them all a couple of hours later they came and got them to relocate. This is a pic of the 4 babies - mom was out eating the garden. Mom was the first one to walk into the trap and the babies soon followed. 5 woodchucks in a garden caused a lot of damage. They lived under our storage shed and my gardens were their main source of vegetation. After they left we filled up the holes with cement. We never did find the second hole but it helps if you know where both of them are. Eleanor
Cute little hogs. Some will feed, name and keep them to the dismay of gardeners. They can dig under or climb over any fence known to man. They crawl and climb up trees. Had one in my peach tree that thought it was as squirrel. The peachs went the route before I discovered that one.
We need only one in Pennsylvania. That is our famous Phil who attracts thousands of people to Punxy for the weekend of celebration each year.
Yes do close the holes when you dispose of one. Skunks like the free appartments left by the groundhogs. So do rabbits and other small critters. A fox may occasionally enlarge the holes of the groundhog although this is usually in a more remote area than your back yard.
For those inclined to have no mercy there are smoke bombs at the farm and garden feed outlets or mills for about a dollar apiece. Used at night when the dens are occupied they work just fine. Drop one in the hole and close the hole with a feed bag or runway ground.
It sure helps if you have a few neighbors working together to thin the populations. To cite the math....the mother of the tree little ones will have at least two litters a year. The babys will have a litter before fall arrives. If not controlled they just explode in numbers not as bad as squirrels or rabbits but bad enough for sure. The preditors just do not exist in large enough numbers to ballance anything these days.
I removed eleven from my small property last summer. That was a new record but not unexpected. I have no help in my neighborhood at the present time. I do whatever I have to do to get rid of them trying to trap while using other methods as well. Professional trappers have a good business in our area.
pickled groung hog is very good.
they are very good. you should try one
ROFLOL
While i was outside yesterday, the @#%^ thing ate my MGs. i'd been thinking how nice they were coming in, too. Also a few things in containers are 1/2 eaten, which means they are coming WAAY too close.
So much for the pinwheels making them nervous...
Eaten de dirt............could that be the source of all my dirty little thoughts? Maybe I should switch to eating 10 - 10 - 10. The country western song said there weren't no tens. That way I would be assured of one with two to spare. ]:o)
I'm sure I ate dirt tonight. Don't think the asparagus was washed very well... chew, chew, CRUNCH!
My mother tells me that, during the depression, her family ate many a groundhog while they lived on her uncle's farm in a tent one summer. By winter, they had to find an "in town" place and Grandpa found work, other than removing the groundhogs from uncle's farm.
I'm afraid that I've not yet been that hungry, thankfully.
Our game commission in Western PA told us not to relocate groundhogs, although we have a "live trap" - because they are carriers of rabies, and that nobody wants more of them in their fields. (Agriculture is important in this part of the state, still.)
T
Theresa
oh that picture with the 4 babies gave me a chill up my spine
Saw one taking a drink from my pond yesterday. I pursued him with the hose. They don't move very fast, even when being chased!
in a way i am happy the fox family moved it... would rather deal with them
Well my chuck is back and not the least bit afraid of me, I took this shot this morning. Now I have to go to plan B since the kitty litter didnt seem to send them away, so just wanted to let you know
hummmm . . . The "Joy of Cooking" cookbook has a recipe for squirrel you might be able to adapt to groundhogs.
well as i first thought the fox were keeping mine away... I guess with the heat they returned under my old shed... just saw the hole dug a few hours ago.... my have-a-heart is out... can't wait to get rid of that thing
hummmmmmmmmm.......the cookbook, ROADKILL, has a lot of interesting ways to handle game meat.
where there is 1.... there are usually 3 or 4 more
