Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Fencing for Woodchucks

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "William McKay" <bmckay55 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Fencing for Woodchucks
  • Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 04:31:53 PDT


While I am not sure you have more woodchucks in your neck of the woods than I do, the solution is the same.

As to fencing, unless you have a small garden, it is probably not cost effective to use fencing. In any case, most woodchucks can defeat most fences. They climb, they dig, and once they get a taste of your vegetables it is almost impossible to keep them out.

That leaves eliminating them. In order to do that, you need to study their behavior so that you can use that in your prevention/elimination plan. Around here (Eastern Massachusetts), most woodchucks make their burrows either just inside the woodline (if you have trees bordering your fields) or alongside stone walls. If you have dumped tree stumps , brush or cut up trees somewhere, you can guarantee that this area will become a woodchuck condo complex. They seem to love to dig burrows into the side of an incline. Also, they tend to feed close to home; rarely will a woodchuck travel more than 100 or 200 yards to feed. In addition, they are very consistent. They tend to use the same routes every day to get to their feeding areas and if you look carefully, you can see their trails.

Armed with this information, you begin your prevention plan in the spring before the brush & weeds grow. Walk the edges of your fields in the likely burrowing areas and look for their burrows. They are pretty easy to spot. When you find one, (1) mark it. use a stake with a color tie or a bit of spray paint.[the reason you do this is that even if you eliminate the current occupant, rest assured later in the year another will move in and take up residence; this way it is easy to find the holes in July] (2) drop a smoke bomb down the hole. More effective and cheaper than a smoke bomb is a rag (an old t shirt or 1/2 towel soaked in gasoline or diesel. Put it in the hole down a foot or so, put it fairly snug but do not stuff it in, light it and let it burn for ten or so minutes. Covering the hole afterwards is optional, although not a bad idea. If you did not kill him, he will dig his way out and you will know that.

You will always miss some of them and even if you get all of them, more will move in later in the summer. Around here the kits leave the home burrow sometime in late June, early July and set up housekeeping on their own. This goes on through July and into August. When you see signs of them-as in munched broccoli, destroyed lettuce, etc then
1. check the holes you marked and destroyed int he spring. Some will have set up in these
2. Remember, they do not travel far. If they worked on crops on the east side of a field, rest assured they live to the east of that. Check the area. If you find the holes, repeat the smoke treatment. If you find their trails and leg hold traps are legal where you live, set traps in the runs.
3. In June, plant a canary crop in areas where woodchucks have been known to live in the past. For example, grow a few hills of summer squash or set out the broccoli transplants that you did not need. Check these frequently and when the woodchucks attack them, go look for them. If leg hold traps were legal in Massachusetts I would stud my canary crops with traps, sort of like a woodchuck minefield. When you catch them in the traps, you can either shoot them or if you feel munificent, hold them over a trash barrel, open the jaws of the trap and drop them in; transport them at least five miles.

The other thing that works well is a big dog. Coyotes are good too, but not all of us are lucky to have a few living close by.

I have never had good luck with have a heart traps, except for the really young ones. Never have caught a full grown one in one of these. If you do decide to use one, apples seem to make fairly good bait.

Poison is out for me. Too many possibilities of others ingesting it. Shooting them is also not very productive (unless they are in a leghold trap). It is pretty hard to weed the field or transplant lettuce while carrying a rifle. Waiting in [ambush is rather time consuming.

Good luck

Bill McKay in E. Massachusetts




I've heard that there are more groundhogs per sq foot here in the
eastern panhandle of West Virginia than anywhere on earth, and it's
easy to believe!!

Trapping and dogs both seem to require knowing where a ground hog is.
This year, their initials hits are so devestating that I just can't
bare any more!

Budget is way low, for the same reason. Can anyone suggested
effective, easy to install groundhog fencing? (I may settle for dog
fencing and keep a dog in the garden full time.)

Your help w.b. v. appreciated.

Thanks
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page