Thread: Groundhogs
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Old 29-04-2008, 11:50 AM posted to rec.gardens.edible
Pat Kiewicz Pat Kiewicz is offline
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First recorded activity by GardenBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 237
Default Groundhogs

General Schvantzkopf said:

I guess I'll have to bring out the Havahart trap. What do you use for
bait?


I've had my best luck with apples, sometimes augmented with either
a pot of lettuce or a professional groundhog lure. Put some bits of
apple near the entrance of the trap and the Motherload in the back.

BTW what's the density of groundhogs?. If I trap the one in my
garden will another one just show up to take his place?. Back in the 80s
I was trapping raccoons and that was hopeless. I moved 50 of them
before I gave up. The thing that finally got the raccoons under control
was a rabies epidemic.


My observations:

They adults aren't usually frequent or long-range dispersers. (Probably
because they build elaborate permanent burrows.) It's the young ones
that will do the wandering and (based on my experience) only once a
year. So if you can manage to take out the local residents, you might
expect in the future some occasional new ones, in early summer.
One nice thing about that: Young ones are easier to trap, plus their new
burrows are usually simple and easy to smoke bomb (or whatever).

--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

After enlightenment, the laundry.