Get Rid of Woodchucks
Woodchucks, also commonly called groundhogs, are a member of the squirrel family. Woodchucks can be a nuisance to property owners by causing plant damage in gardens, fields, and orchards, and by digging holes to create underground burrows. Burrows woodchucks dig near structures can cause foundation damage.
Contents
Steps
Deterring the Woodchucks
- Make your yard less attractive to woodchucks to discourage them from settling down.
- Remove old stumps, wood and brush piles. Woodchucks' teeth are constantly growing, and they need to gnaw on wood to keep their teeth filed down.
- Remove or fence off all sources of water. Because woodchucks are good climbers, chewers, and diggers, fences should be at least {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}} high (1 m), made of heavy-grade chicken wire, and buried 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) below ground.
- Keep the woodchucks away from your garden by planting a food source just for them in a separate area away from your plants. Alfalfa and clover are a couple of their favorites.
Repelling the Woodchucks
- Apply repellents to plants groundhogs like to eat. Try hot pepper spray, dried blood or talcum powder. Urine from one of their natural predators (fox, dog or raccoon) may also deter woodchucks.
- Fumigate woodchucks in their burrows. You can buy gas cartridges that produce carbon monoxide and other lethal gasses.
- Locate all of a burrow's entrances. Block off all but the main one using a rock or a chunk of sod.
- Light the cartridge, following manufacturer's instructions, and throw it into the burrow's main entrance. Block off the main entrance to the burrow to prevent the groundhogs from escaping.
- Spray a pest repellent on your flowers and plants.
- The repellent will give the plants a bitter taste that woodchucks dislike.
- Continue to spray the plants as they grow and after it rains.
Making Life Hard for Woodchucks
- Harass the woodchucks to get rid of them. For harassment to be an effective means of wildlife control, it must be continuous and concentrated.
- Fill burrow holes and block any spots that give woodchucks access to their holes. You may have to refill the holes several times before woodchucks give up and move on.
- Spread thick molasses or another sticky substance around burrow entrances. Woodchucks will go to great lengths to avoid getting sticky things on their bodies. Reapply the substance after every rain.
- Set up motion-activated sprinklers that blast the groundhogs with water. Move the sprinklers around periodically so they do not learn how to avoid them.
- Fill the woodchuck's hole with poly tree netting. This is the same netting you'd use to keep birds off a berry tree. Leave some extra sticking up out of the ground.
- Add a heavy rock on top of the hole to hold the netting and fill the entrance. Groundhogs will come back again and again because they smell previous groundhog urine in the area. They will try to repeatedly try to open the hole up.
- If you fill the hole up by adding the netting, they'll get it tangled in their feet when they try to re-dig the hole.This does not hurt the animal because they will chew off anything that gets wrapped around their paw. It does get them aggravated to the point where they will leave and not come back.
Trapping Woodchucks
- Trap woodchucks; but make sure to abide by the laws in your locality. In some states, it is illegal to release trapped wildlife in an area other than where it was caught. In other states, you need a permit to trap wildlife. Check with your local fish and wildlife department or your local animal control officer to find out what the laws are in your area.
- Use wire cage traps and place them at the entrance of the groundhogs burrow, or in areas where you know they travel.
- Choose fresh carrots, apples or lettuce as bait.
- Check the traps at least once a day. Release or euthanize trapped animals within 24 hours of capture, following local laws.
- Hunt woodchucks in compliance with local licensing requirements.
Fencing Off Your Garden
- Build a low wood fence to surround your vegetable garden.
- Equip the fence with charged wires that animal zap intruders.
- The electricity will not kill the woodchuck or drive it from your yard, but it will effectively scare it away from the garden.
Warnings
- In most cases, if you remove woodchucks from an area, it is only a matter of time before new woodchucks move in.
