Woodchucks or groundhogs can greatly damage a garden.
How to Prevent Groundhogs from Invading Your Garden
Do you have trouble with these burrowing pests? Here are tips for identifying and getting rid of groundhogs in your yard and garden.
What Are Groundhogs?
If every day is Groundhog Day in your garden, you’ll probably agree with those who call that gluttonous rodent their least favorite backyard creature. Even skunks get more respect. Speaking of Groundhog Day, find out the origins of that funny holiday.
The problem is that groundhogs—also known as woodchucks or whistle-pigs—are binge eaters who can wipe out your vegetable garden in a matter of minutes. They climb, they burrow, they swim, and they eat—an adult consumes about a pound to a pound-and-a-half of vegetation daily. Between spring and fall, they double their body weight.
Do Groundhogs Hibernate?
Yes, they do! Soon after they emerge from a winter’s hibernation, they mate, giving birth in mid-spring—at a time when the pickings are at their slimmest. Neat rows of seedlings must look like manna from heaven to hungry groundhogs, who sometimes perch on garden fence posts as if they are looking over the salad bar.
When hibernating, groundhogs—who are never speedy—really slow down, drawing a breath only about once every five minutes. Hibernation is curious behavior: Barely breathing, these mammals cool off to just a few degrees above the ambient temperature, sometimes as low as 39º to 40ºF. Their metabolic rate drops, and they sleep profoundly in their winter dens, neither eating nor drinking for four-and-a-half to five-and-a-half months, drawing all their nourishment from the body fat they accumulated during the summer. No wonder they eat so much!
How to Identify Groundhogs
Members of the squirrel family, groundhogs are squarish, stocky animals that typically weigh between 4 and 14 pounds. They have short, strong legs, coarse, grizzled, gray-brown fur, small ears, a short, bushy tail, and curved claws. Groundhogs look a bit like runaway fur coats as they waddle back to their burrows. This critter can grow to be about 3 feet long. They have large, competent, chisel-like teeth that make them efficient but not quite endearing.
Wondering where groundhogs live? See any deep tunnels in your yard, under your deck, or near your foundation? You may have a groundhog; they dig burrows to live in, and the entrances are usually 10 to 12 inches wide, with the excavated soil spread around the entrances. There are usually 2 or 3 entrances.
Groundhog Damage
What do groundhogs eat? Everything from flowers to vegetables. Favorite foods include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lettuce, broccoli, plantain, and soybeans. Groundhogs will often devour your seedlings before they even have time to grow. Rabbits and deer eat some of the same plants, so make sure to check for burrows before concluding that you have groundhogs. If you don’t have vegetables around, groundhogs will settle for twigs, bark, bugs, and blossoms.
Groundhogs eat mostly during the early morning and afternoon, so try to see when your garden is receiving the most damage. These creatures will also gnaw and claw at fruit trees, so check your trees for any such marks.
Catherine Boeckmann
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My new tenant under the metal shed in our fenced yard came a day or so ago... My husky chased it back under the shed for now ,which was a new exciting change from the squirrels and birds she usually chases, so I hope that's the last we have seen of it ...
My neighbors say we have a groundhog living under our porch and it is always coming on our porch. I have only seen a cat. It is hard to get under the porch and I'm not sure what to do or where to look. Do they give off a bad smell or could that be the cat? Worried about any damage that may be happening under there!
We are partial to hot red pepper flakes in abundance in such cases, but perhaps one thing you should really consider (besides a dog) is a blanket approach — trying so many things at once that it just becomes not worth it for the groundhog to be there. Try lots of things at once: Put nasty stuff under the porch and seal it. Sprinkle bleach around. Sometimes you can snake black plastic drainage hose under the porch and then use it to blow or inject balls of cotton infused with menthol or something else nasty. “Thread” the hose onto long sections of the handle to a snow rake, for example, and then withdraw the pole to leave the hose where you want it. Bear in mind that this is about getting it to not want to be under there in the first place. Good luck!
I have used lemon ammonia, I pour into one end of a garden hose with a nozzle open at the end. once the ammonia starts coming out I close the nozzle and hook the other end to the spigot. turn on the water open the end and it will pour straight ammonia where ever they are. Worked on getting skunks out from under our mobile home. smelled better too.
I have a groundhog who's home is under my deck and his hole actually goes into my cellar, I can not reach the home in the cellar for it is in a crawl space that is to small for any adult to get into. Some one told me to put moth balls in and around the hole. The moth balls didn't work as I saw him today and it looks like he doesn't even care. I'm afraid to fence him in and then he ends up living in my cellar. I've tried live taps but all I catch are coons. I'm open to suggestions.
Hi, Brandon: Well, this is certainly a narrow topic. NOT. Please see the response to DebB below for some ideas. We are partial to hot red pepper flakes in abundance in such cases, but perhaps one thing you should really consider (besides a dog) is a blanket approach -- trying so many things at once that it just becomes not worth it to be there. We have a similar crawl space. Have you thought about blocking off the crawl space from the basement except for one opening, putting a live trap in the opening, luring it into the crawlspace with corn, and then blocking the outside hole? Otherwise, try lots of things at once: Put nasty stuff in the hole and seal it. Seal off under the deck and around it put sticks that you've smeared with mentholated petroleum jelly. Sprinkle bleach around. Sometimes you can snake black plastic drainage hose through the crawl space to the nest or home and then use it to blow or inject balls of cotton infused with menthol or something else nasty. "Thread" the hose onto long sections of the handle to a snow rake, for example, and then withdraw the pole to leave the hose where you want it. Bear in mind that this is not about preventing the woodchuck from getting into your basement, which you cannot do. It is about getting it to not want to be there in the first place. Good luck!
Thank you for your advice! I did end up catching it in my live trap yesterday, only to find today 4 baby woodchucks crawling around my deck. Any suggestions on how to get them all at once?
Hi, Brandon: No need to get them all at once. Put some lettuce pieces, some carrot baby food, and a low bowl of water in your live trap. Make note of when you see the kits and put it out for an hour at that time. Observe if you can, so that you don't get a skunk or possum. It's probably too late for another tactic, which is to use the mom as "bait," although this isn't very humane. You would put the mom in one cage/trap in as comfortable a place/way as possible, then put another live trap with water next to it. The kits will come to the mom, which will make them thirsty, and then perhaps get lured by the water. But depending on how old the kits are, this may be a moot point anyway, if you know what we mean. But thanks for at least trying to do this in a humane way!
Lets face it there is no way to effectively get rid of ground hogs, at least not in Western PA. I grow vegetables for a living and lose about $10,000 a year to them. I have killed them in every way you can imagine with no effect on their population. Once you remove one from a hole, another moves in. I have trapped groundhogs from the same hole for 20 years. There must be a way to keep new groundhogs from re-occupying holes where others have been eliminated.
Are there any chemists out there that can figure this out??
A friend of mine who takes care of pools in our area suggested putting a chlorine tablet (used in continuous pool chlorinators) in the opening to the burrow. The chlorine gas that is released continuously is heavier than air and will descend into the burrow. It sounds like a great idea, I know it would drive me out, and I will be trying it to remedy our woodchuck problem.
