"So... what kind of peanut butter does a groundhog like?"

[RAE]

This has occurred to me also, to the point that I've given thought to simply throwing the trap with groundhog in it, into the nearby creek and drown it. Tie a rope to the trap (before trapping!) and pull it back up later. But I don't like that idea much either.

I have done that in the past (trust me, groundhog trapping is an annual ritual around our neighborhood).

 

[RAE]

Wonder why you have so many groundhogs, forest land is a good solution.

Perfect groundhog habitat around our neighborhood........big lush lawns, lots of old buildings/garages to burrow under, and two big vegetable gardens also (mine and my neighbors). One year a groundhog destroyed much of my vegetable garden (and that made me very unhappy ), so now when my neighbor or I spot one, the trap gets set right away, and we keep setting it until they are all trapped and moved. My neighbor is not thrilled with the groundhog burrows underneath his garage, either.

 

[ivinsfan]

This has occurred to me also, to the point that I've given thought to simply throwing the trap with groundhog in it, into the nearby creek and drown it. Tie a rope to the trap (before trapping!) and pull it back up later. But I don't like that idea much either.

Me either, I don't like the final solution.. we have an enclosed screen porch on our farmhouse, even though we have it enclosed around the bottom a groundhog dug in behind some hydrangea we have, tunneled through the rock foundation under part of our house and got into the basement. Basement is furnace and well area some storage, no living space. And closed off from the rest of the house with a door. I still heard the sucker running around down there, he wasn't smart enough to figure how to get out. After 4 days with no food or water he went to the live trap, so we have caught one in a live trap, but he was desperate. We reinforced the entire outside of the house and have a ZERO tolerance policy towards groundhogs.

 

[Gumby]

I can tell you what they ate when they broke into our garden last year - winter squash (butternut and buttercup), sweet potato leaves, and brussels sprouts.

 

[24601NoMore]

Groundhogs we've trapped in the past seem to love cantaloupe and apples..covered in PB..

Good luck not catching a skunk, possum or other critter though..they also seem to love those types of bait.

 

[braumeister]

We have no luck with the HAH traps...glad to hear they work for someone..do you every think that maybe you just have one really smart groundhog? They are very territorial. I am on the fence about dumping a groundhog on someone else's property, as they are so destructive.

When I did this I released it in a county park about ten miles away.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

Goundhogs are cagey and extremely difficult to trap. You probably don't want to hear this, but if it wants to it will dig its way in your house. Maybe you don't have a basement but if you do digging is their favorite hobby.


We have a creek running through our farm and are cursed with them. Never caught one in a live trap.Or a leg trap. What you want is a Duke body trap..be sure to buy the Duke safety setting tools, both of them, check Amazon. Use cantaloupe and be patient. Now if you have any local cats or dogs and cannot put the trap in an enclosed space, that's a non-starter. Our GHs dig into our machine shed from the outside and we place the trap in the shed with the door always closed.

FWIW we have live traps and use them on coons and other varmints, but groundhogs are destructive, smarter then Sh%$, and they get the big goodbye at our place.

Yes, the body hold traps are the way to go. They kill quickly, unlike leg-hold traps. I caught a woodchuck in one that had burrowed under my garage about a week ago. Cabela's certainly has them (I think they carry the Bridger brand) but some farm stores also have them. One caveat -- if you or neighbors have pets that wander the yard, be careful with these.

Edit: BTW, a neighbor uses a Havahart trap to catch varmints in her barn because her cats share the structure. She often catches raccoons, which are absolutely vicious when cornered. At that point she calls me or another neighbor with a .22 rifle.

 

[Walt34]

What you want is a Duke body trap..be sure to buy the Duke safety setting tools, both of them, check Amazon. Use cantaloupe and be patient. Now if you have any local cats or dogs and cannot put the trap in an enclosed space, that's a non-starter.

Yes, I'd read about those traps but here there are pets sometimes running loose. Not very often, I see one maybe once a month at most, but I sure don't want to catch somebody's dog or cat in one of those. A HAH trap, okay, ruins their morning but won't hurt them. Also next door neighbor has small kids visiting sometimes, so Duke traps are out.

 

[Aerides]

I have a TNR trap that sounds like the HAH type. No chance of injury, and easy to use.

 

[samclem]

I hadn't realized DW and I are such outliers! We're happy to have a groundhog burrow behind the shop, and now we have a young 'un grazing in the back lawn most mornings. Woo-hoo! We don't have a garden (or a horse), and so far they haven't caused any damage, so they are welcome to stay. One year we saw two adults and a juvenile groundhog climbing up, then down, a hackberry tree (they are not very good climbers).

It's good to know cantaloupe works as bait, that's could come in handy if they wear out their welcome.

 

[braumeister]

I hadn't realized DW and I are such outliers! We're happy to have a groundhog burrow behind the shop, and now we have a young 'un grazing in the back lawn most mornings.

There are outliers, and then there are outliers.
DW and I both enjoy skunks and in our last house we always had a family of them living under the gazebo in the back yard. You don't see them too often because they're shy as well as nocturnal, but fun to watch. Apart from two memorable occasions when the cat went out early in the morning and needed a tomato juice bath, they never did any harm and we never had a spraying incident.

When DW was a little girl growing up on a farm, she had a pet (deodorized) skunk.

 

[ivinsfan]

There are outliers, and then there are outliers.
DW and I both enjoy skunks and in our last house we always had a family of them living under the gazebo in the back yard. You don't see them too often because they're shy as well as nocturnal, but fun to watch. Apart from two memorable occasions when the cat went out early in the morning and needed a tomato juice bath, they never did any harm and we never had a spraying incident.

When DW was a little girl growing up on a farm, she had a pet (deodorized) skunk.

You win.... did you ever use the gazebo?

 

[braumeister]

You win.... did you ever use the gazebo?

Almost every day. The striped ones never bothered us and we didn't bother them.

 

[ivinsfan]

Almost every day. The striped ones never bothered us and we didn't bother them.

That's good to hear...hopefully you kept your animals rabies shots updated, that's the big issue with skunks.. IMO

 

[gerntz]

You might try covering the openings with deer netting - thin plastic roll of about 1/4" squares but extremely tuff to break thru - in large amounts covering a large area. Maybe use 2 or 3 layers. He/she/it could get tired of being tangled in/biting the stuff. Anchor the edges down say every 1' or so. Certainly works for us against deer.

 

[Walt34]

Deer netting is a thought too. I'd suspect the plastic kind would be worthless against a groundhog's teeth but the metal fine mesh kind, in layers, might work. Poke some steel wool in the hole to further be a PITA to him and he might give it up.

 

[NW-Bound]

A dog? How about a large cat?

A cat would have to be a very large one.

Good thing we have no groundhogs 'round here.

 

[W2R]

And so I wondered.... why have I never seen a groundhog in my yard, when we have a multitude of possums, raccoons, cats, nutria, wharf rats, squirrels, ravens the size of terriers, seagulls, huge egrets, ducks, and basically nearly every other kind of "critter" known to mankind?

Wikipedia to the rescue! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog#Distribution_and_habitat

Marmota monax has a wide geographic range. It is typically found in low-elevation forests, small woodlots, fields, pastures and hedgerows. It constructs dens in well-drained soil,

Oh wow, THAT explains it. No sane person could ever describe New Orleans as having well drained soil. If you dig a hole a foot deep in New Orleans, it fills up with water. This is natural considering our plentiful rainfall and very high water table.

I tend to let all of the above creatures just co-exist since they don't bother me much. Setting traps for them here would be like bailing water with a teaspoon.

 

[Walt34]

Oh wow, THAT explains it. No sane person could ever describe New Orleans as having well drained soil. If you dig a hole a foot deep in New Orleans, it fills up with water. This is natural considering our plentiful rainfall and very high water table.

Yep. One of the "solutions" to a groundhog hole was to stick a water hose in there and let the water run, flooding the critter out. In our case a more likely result is a flooded basement. So I'll pass on that one.

 

[W2R]

Yep. One of the "solutions" to a groundhog hole was to stick a water hose in there and let the water run, flooding the critter out. In our case a more likely result is a flooded basement. So I'll pass on that one.

Interesting! And yes, a flooded basement sounds like something worth avoiding whenever possible.

 

[Gumby]

A cat would have to be a very large one.

Our very first cat was a big beast of a thing. 25 lbs, mean as hell, and afraid of neither man nor beast. Before he walked in our door, he was "sleeping rough" as they say, so he was well accustomed to fending for himself. If he was sitting on our porch and saw a cat crossing the street way down the block, he would run down there, beat the crap out of the strange cat and swagger back home. He would never back down from dogs of any size.

One day, we came home to see him and a groundhog sunning themselves about three feet apart next to the garage, much like your video. Apparently, he finally met the creature he wouldn't take on.

 

[samclem]

There are outliers, and then there are outliers.
DW and I both enjoy skunks and in our last house we always had a family of them living under the gazebo in the back yard. You don't see them too often because they're shy as well as nocturnal, but fun to watch. Apart from two memorable occasions when the cat went out early in the morning and needed a tomato juice bath, they never did any harm and we never had a spraying incident.

They are fun to watch-- bumbly, seldom in a hurry. We got a lot of rain a couple of years ago and I saw a momma skunk trundling along our fenceline in the middle of the day, leading her three kits to higher ground. Like your cat, our poodle learned a lot about them one day. I was really not prepared for the smell--up close and fresh, it smelled more like some kind of potent industrial solvent than the typical outdoor "skunk smell." Very effective. Tomato baths, vanilla, powerful soaps--the only thing that eventually rid our dog of the last of the stench was time.

 

[brewer12345]

If you know where the hole is, drop some chunks of dry ice in. Co2 is heavier than air so they go to sleep and never wake up.

 

[brainsagolfer]

Cantaloupe!

i would be surprised if peanut butter works - you will likely attract all the squirrels in the 'hood instead. Groundhogs eat veggiesand fruit- i have trapped them with cantaloupe. tomatoes may work also, but cantaloupe is my #1.

 

[Red Badger]

Shooting them is a popular solution in many areas, but we live in an area where that isn't an option. Not unless I want to spend some time in jail, so that's out.

A properly zeroed pellet rifle (.177 or .22 caliber) with a scope. No louder than a BB gun. Extremely lethal within ~50 yards. A Crossman will do the job nicely and they're in most big box store etc. Get a pump action - not the c02 unit.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=crossman+1077+pellet+rifle&crid=3N5EJTGU16X7X&sprefix=crossman%2Caps%2C255&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_5_8