# SHOP VERMIN



## uncle harry

My RENT-A-GRUNT  (a very dear friend who I pay for his help)  & I assisted and/or watched as a crew of mudjackers attacked my #2 shop slab. They drilled a grid of about 20 inch and a half holes through the 4 inch 16 X 26 slab and proceeded to fill voids beneath. We helped them reposition about a dozen machines and cabinets in a couple of "musical chairs" events so that they could introduce  a family of woodchucks to about three cubic yards of mortar. All of this took about 4 hours at a bargain cash cost of a mere $1400 that I might have enjoyed having more shop toys with. The subterranean "guests" inflicted this damage in a matter of about 1 week last summer. Now perhaps I can keep my Harrison M300 level lathe level again.


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## Tozguy

So, Can You Eat Groundhog?
					

Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! Unless you're reading this too late-in which case-happy regular day! In the ever-expanding mission to u...




					www.myrecipes.com


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## uncle harry

Tozguy said:


> So, Can You Eat Groundhog?
> 
> 
> Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! Unless you're reading this too late-in which case-happy regular day! In the ever-expanding mission to u...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.myrecipes.com




x


Tozguy said:


> So, Can You Eat Groundhog?
> 
> 
> Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! Unless you're reading this too late-in which case-happy regular day! In the ever-expanding mission to u...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.myrecipes.com



These creatures have injured me enough to add the insult of dining on them. Expensive diet those would be !


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## MontanaLon

Groundhog is quite tasty, particularly the young ones as they are nice and tender. 

Groundhog BBQ
Groundhog gumbo
Groundhog kebabs
Groundhog cocktail
Groundhog tartar
Groundhog on a shingle


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## FOMOGO

Harry, I think the big question is, are we now going to have three more weeks of winter? Cheers, Mike


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## RJSakowski

I nearly lost a finger to a groundhog some years ago. I have no love for them.  About twenty years ago, my new wife, freshly imported from the UK, thought that the young groundhogs sliding down a sand pile were cute.   few weeks later, when her entire row of green beans disappeared, her command was"kill them".  I keep a .22 loaded all summer in the event a groundhog should present itself. They are cagey critters though; the slightest movement and they're gone to ground.

I had a problem with them undermining a barn foundation.  I find that plugging the holes with good sized rock works.  When they're underground, they run out of room to move their excavation material.  I expect that I have a few skeletons under my barn floor.


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## Reddinr

ground hog.  Probably makes a nice burger.


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## markba633csi

I wonder how they catch those darn things each year if they are as quick and cagey as RJ says they are


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## Barncat

My neighbor asked if he could shoot the ones around my house. He said they are tasty, grass fed and taste like beef. I haven’t tried.


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## RJSakowski

markba633csi said:


> I wonder how they catch those darn things each year if they are as quick and cagey as RJ says they are


I ambush them. The gardens are both easily visible from the house so I can shoot from the house.  For the ones further away, if I spot themand they haven't seen me, I can get the rifle and sneak up to the point where I have a good shot.  Large live traps also work well.  Just make sure they're not alive when you open the trap.


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## brino

When I was a kid I remember shooting one in the yard with a pellet rifle......boy did that make him mad!
He charged at me, I swung the gun around and clubbed him one, and they I departed quickly......
Ahhh childhood!

-brino


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## uncle harry

RJSakowski said:


> I nearly lost a finger to a groundhog some years ago. I have no love for them.  About twenty years ago, my new wife, freshly imported from the UK, thought that the young groundhogs sliding down a sand pile were cute.   few weeks later, when her entire row of green beans disappeared, her command was"kill them".  I keep a .22 loaded all summer in the event a groundhog should present itself. They are cagey critters though; the slightest movement and they're gone to ground.
> 
> I had a problem with them undermining a barn foundation.  I find that plugging the holes with good sized rock works.  When they're underground, they run out of room to move their excavation material.  I expect that I have a few skeletons under my barn floor.





One of the poles in the same shed that my #2 shop has been undermined twice by ground hogs. This has caused the siding to bulge out and has thus forced the 10 X 10 sliding door to be pushed out about 4 degrees rendering it unmovable. This is the next major repair scheduled for the hopefully warmer days to come. But before that I need to repair the magneto on the tractor's  Wisconsin VG4D engine to get the spark back !  My guess is once I light up the Wisconsin I'll discover a colony of mice living under the shrouds.  No fear of boredom during this global disaster.  

I have a live trap and a brute strength led pellet rifle which I am assured will dispatch a whistle pig (as they are called out east) quite readily.  Not preparing the oven for any marmot on a shingle though.


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## Tozguy

Would a Dachshund be worth its keep?


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## uncle harry

Tozguy said:


> Would a Dachshund be worth its keep?




So that's what they were bred for ?  I know some folks who might like to give their pets an opportunity to know fear.


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## RJSakowski

An adult groundhog in a burrow would be a fearsome adversary for a dachshund.  Now maybe if we brought one of those Florida Burmese Pythons.


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## MontanaLon

RJSakowski said:


> An adult groundhog in a burrow would be a fearsome adversary for a dachshund.  Now maybe if we brought one of those Florida Burmese Pythons.


The dachshunds are fierce fighters, a friend breeds them and has had them follow foxes into dens and drag them out. They were originally bred to chase badgers into dens and drag them out. Even the miniature dachshunds would be able to handle a groundhog easily. 

Many of the terrier breeds would make short work of a groundhog. Friends of the family have Jack Russells and they would also chase groundhogs into dens and come out with dead groundhogs. And no rat or mouse was safe either.


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## RJSakowski

A groundhog burrow is pretty tight quarters and groundhogs have a mean set of incisors.  Weightwise, fairly evenly matched but groundhogs have a powerful set of front legs.  If it were my dachshund, I wouldn't send it in after one.  Particularly in a burrow under concrete.


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## MontanaLon

RJSakowski said:


> A groundhog burrow is pretty tight quarters and groundhogs have a mean set of incisors.  Weightwise, fairly evenly matched but groundhogs have a powerful set of front legs.  If it were my dachshund, I wouldn't send it in after one.  Particularly in a burrow under concrete.


I wouldn't either but that is the thing with them, they would just jump right into it themselves. They are like a beagle to rabbits. You don't have to train them to do it, if a rabbit takes off in front of them they are going to chase it. It has just been bred into them over the years.


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## RJSakowski

Actually, I used to raise beagles.  They usually have no interest in chasing by sight.  They trail be scent and the good ones will dissect the the scent trail very methodically.  They're fun to watch.


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## uncle harry

markba633csi said:


> I wonder how they catch those darn things each year if they are as quick and cagey as RJ says they are


 
I can attest to how quick they are !  Next thing I know is that Cabellas will be offering Groundhog blinds with turkey hunting camo suits as a package,


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## Aukai

Maybe you can get some hints from the movie Caddyshack, similar issues...


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## Buffalo21

uncle harry said:


> I can attest to how quick they are !  Next thing I know is that Cabellas will be offering Groundhog blinds with turkey hunting camo suits as a package,



as a young lad, my next door neighbor had a canvas duck blind set up next to his garden and with a Sears 22LR semi-automatic, would sit for hours and reek havoc on the local ground hog population


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## uncle harry

Aukai said:


> Maybe you can get some hints from the movie Caddyshack, similar issues...




As a matter of fact we did drop some firecrackers down the holes last summer.


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## Nutfarmer

What I do for squirrels in the orchard is full the boroughs with a mixture of oxygen and propane and bang no more boroughs. There are special  machines just for this. Don't think I would use it around buildings  because of fire .  Down side is the noise.


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## RJSakowski

Back when I was a lad, shooting groundhogs was a sport. Guys used to go out with flat shooting rifles and take them out at a couple of hundered yards. When groundhogs sense something is up, they sit up on their haunches, thereby making a pretty good target.  At two hundred yards, the groundhog wouldn't even know they were there.


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## RJSakowski

While on the subject, does anyone have a good means of getting rid of moles?  They have really been invading the past few years.  If I can pinpoint them in a tunnel, I'll stomp the tunnel in on either side of them to prevent their escape and flood them out with a hose.  When they stick their head out a good swipe with the end of the hose takes them out.


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## MontanaLon

RJSakowski said:


> While on the subject, does anyone have a good means of getting rid of moles?  They have really been invading the past few years.  If I can pinpoint them in a tunnel, I'll stomp the tunnel in on either side of them to prevent their escape and flood them out with a hose.  When they stick their head out a good swipe with the end of the hose takes them out.





These work pretty well but there are other products that also work but the use is "off label" so isn't supposed to happen. These basically create sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide puts them to sleep and possibly kills them but the sulfur dioxide combines with the water in their lungs and makes sulphuric acid and makes sure they don't wake up. 

Just a regular smoke bomb will do the same and give you nice colored smoke at all the entrances so if they do bail out you can whack them with whatever means you have available. A farmer friend of mine cut his alfalfa and invited a couple of guys with shotguns while he stuffed military style smoke grenades and maybe an OC or CS grenade in the holes. It was fast shooting as the little 13 lined ground squirrels shot out of the ground coughing and found no where to hide. Wasn't sporting at al but he said the hay production at the next cutting was double what it was from the cutting the day we went to war. We went through nearly a case of shells and I suspect many of the little rats died underground unable to find their way out in time.

It did look kind of funny to passerby, orange, red, purple smoke rising out of the ground and 3 grown men running and gunning in the field. We had a deputy stop by and pull out his cell phone and when the farmer sat his gun down and walked out to the road to talk to him he waved him back and left. We figured he wanted no part of it or he knew what we were doing.


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## Tozguy

I have had some success in repelling ground squirrels, raccoons and ground hogs by putting a few laundry soap pods down the hole or under the building. We bought some laundry soap pods to try but they smelled way to strong to keep in the house. So instead of pitching them in the garbage I stuck a few around in various holes and stored the remainder under the tool shed. There was a marked reduction in critter sightings from that point on. It is cheaper than coyote urine and it seems to work better.


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## RJSakowski

MontanaLon said:


> View attachment 321252
> 
> These work pretty well but there are other products that also work but the use is "off label" so isn't supposed to happen. These basically create sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide puts them to sleep and possibly kills them but the sulfur dioxide combines with the water in their lungs and makes sulphuric acid and makes sure they don't wake up.
> 
> Just a regular smoke bomb will do the same and give you nice colored smoke at all the entrances so if they do bail out you can whack them with whatever means you have available. A farmer friend of mine cut his alfalfa and invited a couple of guys with shotguns while he stuffed military style smoke grenades and maybe an OC or CS grenade in the holes. It was fast shooting as the little 13 lined ground squirrels shot out of the ground coughing and found no where to hide. Wasn't sporting at al but he said the hay production at the next cutting was double what it was from the cutting the day we went to war. We went through nearly a case of shells and I suspect many of the little rats died underground unable to find their way out in time.
> 
> It did look kind of funny to passerby, orange, red, purple smoke rising out of the ground and 3 grown men running and gunning in the field. We had a deputy stop by and pull out his cell phone and when the farmer sat his gun down and walked out to the road to talk to him he waved him back and left. We figured he wanted no part of it or he knew what we were doing.


Thanks for the lead.  I may have to give it a try.  I see that Home Depot sells them.

From the MSDS, it looks like the ingredients are the same as for black powder with possibly an inhibitor to provide a slow burn rather than an explosion.  The MSDS states tha oxides of sulfur are produced when burning.  These would be sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide.  Sulfur dioxide is a gas sometimes used to bleach cherries to make Maraschino cherries.  It combines with water to make sulfurous acid which reacts with metal oxides to make sulfites.  Sulfur trioxide combines with water to make sulfuric acid.  When I worked in a chem lab tears ago, we used to digest samples in sulfuric acid on a hot plate.  As the water was driven off, dense white clouds of sulfur trioxide would form and even though we were operating in a fume hood, some of the fumes would escape into the lab.  If carbon monoxide is being produced, almost certainly carbon black is  in the formula.  Sodium nitrate is listed as 50 -75% of the ingredients in the MSDS.

Over the years, I have breathed in more than my share of sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide, the former with my Gilbert chemistry set as a lad and the latter working as a chemist. Obnoxious but not particularly lethal.  Professional exterminators will use hydrogen cyanide which is considerably more deadly.  Levels of more than 100 ppm  cause death in a few hours; over 200 ppm, in a few minutes. 

Hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell) is as lethal as cyanide.  It's only saving grace, if any, is that no one can stand to be in an area with a lethal amount long enough to succumb to it. It can be produced by heating sulfur and paraffin.   One of my early chemistry experiments.  It took forever to air out my bedroom.  At the time, I wasn't aware of its toxicity.  In chemistry qualitative analysis lab in college, we used a hydrogen sulfide generator to precipitate various metal salts.  Again we had no idea of its toxicity, just that the smell was obnoxious.  There was no such thing as an MSDS in those days.

A potential DIY fumigator would be to heat a closed vessel containing paraffin and sulfur with a tube leading into mole tunnel.  The reaction stops when heat is removed.   As long as you had a good breeze blowing it should be safe.  The neighbors might not appreciate it though and I have no idea as to how long the odor would remain.

Pouring ammonia into a burrow or tunnel should also work.  I expect that it would be more a repellent than a poison though.  The plus is the it is a good soil nutrient.


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## uncle harry

RJSakowski said:


> Thanks for the lead.  I may have to give it a try.  I see that Home Depot sells them.
> 
> From the MSDS, it looks like the ingredients are the same as for black powder with possibly an inhibitor to provide a slow burn rather than an explosion.  The MSDS states tha oxides of sulfur are produced when burning.  These would be sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide.  Sulfur dioxide is a gas sometimes used to bleach cherries to make Maraschino cherries.  It combines with water to make sulfurous acid which reacts with metal oxides to make sulfites.  Sulfur trioxide combines with water to make sulfuric acid.  When I worked in a chem lab tears ago, we used to digest samples in sulfuric acid on a hot plate.  As the water was driven off, dense white clouds of sulfur trioxide would form and even though we were operating in a fume hood, some of the fumes would escape into the lab.  If carbon monoxide is being produced, almost certainly carbon black is  in the formula.  Sodium nitrate is listed as 50 -75% of the ingredients in the MSDS.
> 
> Over the years, I have breathed in more than my share of sulfur dioxide and sulfur trioxide, the former with my Gilbert chemistry set as a lad and the latter working as a chemist. Obnoxious but not particularly lethal.  Professional exterminators will use hydrogen cyanide which is considerably more deadly.  Levels of more than 100 ppm  cause death in a few hours; over 200 ppm, in a few minutes.
> 
> Hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell) is as lethal as cyanide.  It's only saving grace, if any, is that no one can stand to be in an area with a lethal amount long enough to succumb to it. It can be produced by heating sulfur and paraffin.   One of my early chemistry experiments.  It took forever to air out my bedroom.  At the time, I wasn't aware of its toxicity.  In chemistry qualitative analysis lab in college, we used a hydrogen sulfide generator to precipitate various metal salts.  Again we had no idea of its toxicity, just that the smell was obnoxious.  There was no such thing as an MSDS in those days.
> 
> A potential DIY fumigator would be to heat a closed vessel containing paraffin and sulfur with a tube leading into mole tunnel.  The reaction stops when heat is removed.   As long as you had a good breeze blowing it should be safe.  The neighbors might not appreciate it though and I have no idea as to how long the odor would remain.
> 
> Pouring ammonia into a burrow or tunnel should also work.  I expect that it would be more a repellent than a poison though.  The plus is the it is a good soil nutrient.



What is your take on using ammonia and sodium hypochlorite (SP?) together to produce ammonium chloride when poured down the hole ?


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## RJSakowski

uncle harry said:


> What is your take on using ammonia and sodium hypochlorite (SP?) together to produce ammonium chloride when poured down the hole ?


Chlorine gas. Nasty stuff.  Unlike carbon monoxide or even cyanide, its effect on the lungs is lasting.  (think WWI trenches).  It would have a bad effect on plant life too.  Ilat said, as a chemist, I have breathed some.  One time, I was pipeting some aqua regia (hydrochloric acid and nitric acid).  One of the breakdown products is chorine gas.  I discharged dome of the vapor into my nistrils.  Bad move.  O wnet to Pozza Hut later that day and couldn't taste anything.  Chlorine gas is also a product when derusting iron by electrolysis using a salt solution.  A good reason ti use sodium carbonate instead.I also got whiffs of it when I was etching some steel. https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/etching-steel-using-a-2-5-watt-diode-laser.76262/  I know to recognize the odor and to back off/away.


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## markba633csi

"Nice marmot" said the Dude, just before being attacked by the Russian Thugs


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## brino

RJSakowski said:


> we used to digest samples in sulfuric acid on a hot plate. As the water was driven off, dense white clouds of sulfur trioxide would form and even though we were operating in a fume hood, some of the fumes would escape into the lab.





RJSakowski said:


> It can be produced by heating sulfur and paraffin. One of my early chemistry experiments. It took forever to air out my bedroom.





RJSakowski said:


> Again we had no idea of its toxicity, just that the smell was obnoxious.




So this is Freudian-slip a not a typo:



RJSakowski said:


> When I worked in a chem lab *tears* ago, we used to digest samples in sulfuric acid on a hot plate.



-brino


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## Janderso

RJSakowski said:


> Actually, I used to raise beagles. They usually have no interest in chasing by sight. They trail be scent and the good ones will dissect the the scent trail very methodically. They're fun to watch.


I love beagles. When I was a kid, we had a problem with our milk delivery. The glass jugs went missing. The milk man swore he left them.
I'm off to school, mom is watching the front porch, sure enough, a beagle that lives down the street stole the milk jugs.
He dragged the bottles to his master's house about three doors down.

Back to the thread, I would not want to tackle any cornered varmint that has teeth and claws.


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## 4ssss

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/200415182649-groundhog-eating-pizza-super-tease.jpg


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## homebrewed

The place I worked at would regularly get molding compound for encapsulating electronic modules.  The material was shipped in Styrofoam coolers filled with dry ice pellets.  I would take home a whole cooler filled with the pellets, dig out every mole hill I could find and stuff a good batch of dry ice in there.  Plug the hole with dirt and move on to the next.  Dry ice turns into a very large volume of gas (22.4 liters per mole of dry ice, about 44 grams) and it's heavier than air so will persist awhile in a tunnel.  That seemed to greatly reduce the mole activity around the place.  And the CO2 doesn't explode or poison you.  I'm not claiming it won't asphyxiate you, but that would be hard to accomplish in this kind of situation.

When I was in high school the local hardware store sold a product to kill moles and gophers.  Called "gopher gas", it was granulated calcium carbide (oh yeah!).  Put a few tablespoons in a hole, add water and cover.  The carbide would release acetylene gas to asphyxiate the critters.  Naturally, I had the bright idea of taking it one step further and igniting the stuff.  I only did that once.  The explosion blew a rather large plug of dirt out of the hole, and that also is when I learned that gophers dig their tunnels with multiple escape holes.  It turns out one was in a recently-harvested wheat field behind our house.  I looked up and saw smoke curling up in the stubble, but I was able to stomp it out before the whole field went up. That incident is one of the star entries in the list of things I never told my parents about.  There are others, but my lips are sealed


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## MontanaLon

homebrewed said:


> The place I worked at would regularly get molding compound for encapsulating electronic modules.  The material was shipped in Styrofoam coolers filled with dry ice pellets.  I would take home a whole cooler filled with the pellets, dig out every mole hill I could find and stuff a good batch of dry ice in there.  Plug the hole with dirt and move on to the next.  Dry ice turns into a very large volume of gas (22.4 liters per mole of dry ice, about 44 grams) and it's heavier than air so will persist awhile in a tunnel.  That seemed to greatly reduce the mole activity around the place.  And the CO2 doesn't explode or poison you.  I'm not claiming it won't asphyxiate you, but that would be hard to accomplish in this kind of situation.
> 
> When I was in high school the local hardware store sold a product to kill moles and gophers.  Called "gopher gas", it was granulated calcium carbide (oh yeah!).  Put a few tablespoons in a hole, add water and cover.  The carbide would release acetylene gas to asphyxiate the critters.  Naturally, I had the bright idea of taking it one step further and igniting the stuff.  I only did that once.  The explosion blew a rather large plug of dirt out of the hole, and that also is when I learned that gophers dig their tunnels with multiple escape holes.  It turns out one was in a recently-harvested wheat field behind our house.  I looked up and saw smoke curling up in the stubble, but I was able to stomp it out before the whole field went up. That incident is one of the star entries in the list of things I never told my parents about.  There are others, but my lips are sealed


When I worked at the airport we used dry ice on the food service and had a pretty endless supply. Much fun was had with it.

When I shot competitively we used calcium carbide in our miners torches to blacken our sights. It came in a little quart paint can and would last for a long time. This lead to many adventures with flames. Usual vehicle was a trash bag. A few rocks of carbide and a cup of water would fill the trash bag with acetylene. But the fun off that wears off rapidly.


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## Aaron_W

uncle harry said:


> So that's what they were bred for ?  I know some folks who might like to give their pets an opportunity to know fear.



Many small dogs are good for pests. Cats have this reputation for being great anti-rodent devices, but our beagle is a much better mouser than our cat is. 
He will also dig, we had ground squirrels where we lived before. We put the dog out back on a run, 30 minutes later he had turned the backyard into a WW1 diorama, he was a good 3 foot down trying to dig out a squirrel, all you could see was the tip of his tail and flying dirt. Very smart dog, perhaps too smart. 

Not sure how big a ground hog is, but dachshunds are surprisingly tenacious watch dogs. My dad had a friend with a small pack of dachshunds, they had a patrol route around the house where they had worn a trail through the grass down to the dirt. Nothing came onto that property without their permission. They are notorious piddlers though, like perpetual puppies who will pee whenever they get excited, which is all the time.


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## homebrewed

I had a "funny" experience regarding a couple of dachshunds we (my wife and I) encountered on the beach.  The owner + dogs were walking one direction and we were walking the other.  The dogs ran up to me and started chewing on my ankles!  I was strongly tempted to stomp on one but the owner was right there, and my wife was laughing hysterically at the bemused expression on my face.  Assaulted by weener dogs....


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## MontanaLon

The propane through the garden hose with a model rocket igniter in the burrow works too. But I wouldn't do it under a slab as it can be destructive if you do it right.

And once upon a time I saw a Vactor truck used to extract prairie dogs from their burrows. Not sure how it would work on groundhogs but it sure worked for the prairie dogs.


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## RJSakowski

Not about dachshund but their larger cousin.  Some years ago after fresh snow we visited a friend with a basset hound.  There was a set of tracks straddling two parallel parallel lines in the snow.


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## RJSakowski

MontanaLon said:


> The propane through the garden hose with a model rocket igniter in the burrow works too. But I wouldn't do it under a slab as it can be destructive if you do it right.
> 
> And once upon a time I saw a Vactor truck used to extract prairie dogs from their burrows. Not sure how it would work on groundhogs but it sure worked for the prairie dogs.


I remember seeing that.  It made my day!


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## eugene13

I didn't do anything in the shop today because of the covid restriction, when my son is there I'm not, but I did clean up the basement in our house, and I found s bunch of keys that belonged to my Grandfather.  I hardly knew him, he died when I was three but my Grandmother, who raised me said he was a steam fitter, and the keys were from the places he worked.  Some of the keys are simple stampings, like for a cheap padlock, and some of them are beautifully ornate emblazoned with the lock company's names, Yale, Russwin ,P&F Corbin.  There are keys to a General Motors auto, Briggs & Stratton and some that look like hand cuff keys.  Any ideas what I could do with them?


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## mickri

You need a gopher heaven.  Make your own out of an old B&S lawnmower engine.  An friend of mine worked for one of the local school districts in their landscape department.  They kept one old truck just to smoke the buggers out.  They'd come out of their holes half dead and the crew would scoop them up.  Did it after hours when the kids weren't around.


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## uncle harry

mickri said:


> You need a gopher heaven.  Make your own out of an old B&S lawnmower engine.  An friend of mine worked for one of the local school districts in their landscape department.  They kept one old truck just to smoke the buggers out.  They'd come out of their holes half dead and the crew would scoop them up.  Did it after hours when the kids weren't around.


 au.qz her up.

Decades ago we rented a farmhouse were there were tons of openly stored shell corn.  The rat infestation was like running water when we banged on the side of one bin.  So I hooked a hose up to our Kenosha Vibrator (Rambler American) and then stuck the hose down a rat hole.  Then I mixed a concoction of oil, kerosene & gasoline. After taking the air cleaner off I started the engine, revved her up and repeatedly poured the cocktail down the carb short of stalling the engine. Clouds of white smoke billowed from beneath the slab the rats had undermined.  For weeks after one couldn't go very close to that area but for the smell.


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## RJSakowski

There are some good ideas here.  I'll have to put some of them to the test.  

Now on to Mr, Big.  Maybe fifteen years ago, beavers moved into the lottle creek behind the house.  Initially, there was a trapper that removed some each winter but he's gone.  They built a series of dams along the 1/2 mile on stream, turning pastures into marsh and killing every tree in the bottom.  The water level has risen by about two feet behind the house to the extent that the garden is only a foot above the water level at one end.

Given the current situation, we expect to be dependent on the garden produce and if we have a wet summer like last year, it will be difficult to have a productive garden.  The dams have to go!  At least the upper one which would lower the water level by about a foot. 

 In olden days, a half a stick of dynamite would have solved the problem but somehow, I don't think ATF would be the understanding.  The flooding is such that I can't get in with a tractor so the dam will have to be broken manually. Former experience with beaver is that they can rebuild a dam as fast as I can tear it down.

Suggestions are welcomed!


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## uncle harry

RJSakowski said:


> There are some good ideas here.  I'll have to put some of them to the test.
> 
> Now on to Mr, Big.  Maybe fifteen years ago, beavers moved into the lottle creek behind the house.  Initially, there was a trapper that removed some each winter but he's gone.  They built a series of dams along the 1/2 mile on stream, turning pastures into marsh and killing every tree in the bottom.  The water level has risen by about two feet behind the house to the extent that the garden is only a foot above the water level at one end.
> 
> Given the current situation, we expect to be dependent on the garden produce and if we have a wet summer like last year, it will be difficult to have a productive garden.  The dams have to go!  At least the upper one which would lower the water level by about a foot.
> 
> In olden days, a half a stick of dynamite would have solved the problem but somehow, I don't think ATF would be the understanding.  The flooding is such that I can't get in with a tractor so the dam will have to be broken manually. Former experience with beaver is that they can rebuild a dam as fast as I can tear it down.
> 
> Suggestions are welcomed!


 
Would grappling hook(s) catch to loosen and/or pull sticks out?


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## RJSakowski

uncle harry said:


> Would grappling hook(s) catch to loosen and/or pull sticks out?


I made one yesterday.  That works but beavers are remarkable engineers .  It takes a lot of muscle power to pull apart one of their dams. A gasoline powered winch would work if I could get one in there.  I used to have a winch which mounted on the tractor 3 pt. and ran off the PTO.  It had been used to string cable up in Madison back in the '70's and could fit a 1/4 mile of 5/16" cable.  It was made from a 3/4 ton four speed transmission. I haven't seen it in years.  It may have been sold to one of the iron mongers.  I would need around 600 ft. of cable anyway and two people at least ; one at the dam and another at the winch.  I could take my power pull if I can find an anchor point.


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## uncle harry

RJSakowski said:


> I made one yesterday.  That works but beavers are remarkable engineers .  It takes a lot of muscle power to pull apart one of their dams. A gasoline powered winch would work if I could get one in there.  I used to have a winch which mounted on the tractor 3 pt. and ran off the PTO.  It had been used to string cable up in Madison back in the '70's and could fit a 1/4 mile of 5/16" cable.  It was made from a 3/4 ton four speed transmission. I haven't seen it in years.  It may have been sold to one of the iron mongers.  I would need around 600 ft. of cable anyway and two people at least ; one at the dam and another at the winch.  I could take my power pull if I can find an anchor point.



About a decade ago the DNR released some beavers in a conservancy near Tichigan Lake.  When the beavers started to "harvest" the prize trees on some lake residents property the DNR rep was summoned. His excuse for the problem was quote "We forgot to train them".


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## RJSakowski

uncle harry said:


> About a decade ago the DNR released some beavers in a conservancy near Tichigan Lake.  When the beavers started to "harvest" the prize trees on some lake residents property the DNR rep was summoned. His excuse for the problem was quote "We forgot to train them".


That sounds like our DNR.  Unlike streams up north where poplar grows in abundance, there is little food for them here.  When they move into agricultural land they will decimate a corn field.  The dams they have put in have choked the stream up to the point where the silt level is a doot higher than in the past.  The spring floods and occasional flooding used to scour the stream bottom.  Now the stream is looking more like a sewar.  The strea is too small to support a trout population but a half mile away, it empties into a trout stream,  The damming has caused flooding of adjacent land which creates a warm shallow pond which tends to warm the effluent endangering the trout in the stream below.


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## uncle harry

uncle harry said:


> My RENT-A-GRUNT  (a very dear friend who I pay for his help)  & I assisted and/or watched as a crew of mudjackers attacked my #2 shop slab. They drilled a grid of about 20 inch and a half holes through the 4 inch 16 X 26 slab and proceeded to fill voids beneath. We helped them reposition about a dozen machines and cabinets in a couple of "musical chairs" events so that they could introduce  a family of woodchucks to about three cubic yards of mortar. All of this took about 4 hours at a bargain cash cost of a mere $1400 that I might have enjoyed having more shop toys with. The subterranean "guests" inflicted this damage in a matter of about 1 week last summer. Now perhaps I can keep my Harrison M300 level lathe level again.




CHAPTER 2

Oh joy, oh rapture..............now that my uninvited woodchuck guests have been displaced I have been less-than-pleasantly surprised to discover that skunks have invaded a different out building where I store components and materials.  I might just deffer to the professionals on this one !


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## Nutfarmer

Just don't use a live trap to catch the shunks. Don't laugh had a friend in town that caught one. He then called animal control to pick it up. You guessed it ,they wanted nothing to do with it. Next call was to pest control companys. Cheapest quote was 500 dollars. After a good laugh i finally put a burlap sack over the trap and with a long pole  moved the trap . Relocated the poor skunk to the river bank on the farm. Burnt the burlap sack and no one would use the farm truck for quite a while.


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## Dhal22

Janderso said:


> I love beagles. When I was a kid, we had a problem with our milk delivery. The glass jugs went missing. The milk man swore he left them.
> I'm off to school, mom is watching the front porch, sure enough, a beagle that lives down the street stole the milk jugs.
> He dragged the bottles to his master's house about three doors down.
> 
> Back to the thread, I would not want to tackle any cornered varmint that has teeth and claws.




I saw a beagle trotting down the sidewalk with a newspaper in his mouth many years ago.  I didn't think anything of it but as I was driving by I watched him make the turn and head up his driveway.  At the front door was a pile of newspapers.........


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## BGHansen

We have a 64-acre parcel in mid-Michigan, have about 5/8 of a mile of river bank and 50 yards of creek that dumps into the river.  Noticed an Eaton County Drain Commissioner pick-up in our driveway last fall.  He came to follow up on a complaint I'd made (I didn't make a call) about active beavers on our property.  I knew nothing about it, don't walk that area of the property very often.  Sure enough, they'd pretty much dammed up the creek where it meets with the river.

I had the option of trapping them myself or they'd bring in their guy.  We had no interest in the pelts, so their guy set some traps and got them.  The trapper said it was a food cache, not a dam.  It was removed with an excavator.  Didn't get photos of that, but here are some of what the beavers were gnawing on.  Fortunately, it's a 1/4 mile from my shop!

Bruce

Our spread in mid-Michigan.  Dark blue line is the creek that dumps into the Thornapple River



Entrance on our property to the creek.  Pretty much EVERY tree 8" diameter and smaller within 15' of the bank was gnawed down by the beavers (may they rest in peace).


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## Nutfarmer

Here we have to worry about beaver in the levees. They can burrow into the levees to the point they can breach the levees in high water. There never seam to be a balance between what the environments and the levee district. Love seeing the beaver ,but it is scary when the river is at flood and the beaver burrow starts flowing water.


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