Nice tip! Thanks!

I wonder if I could inject rat poison inside it first! Or I could be like my neighbor who uses a Have-A-Hart trap then places the trap, ground and all, in a garbage can of water.

Mike

.22 repeater. If you miss, repeat etc. etc. I hear they're not too bad if you remove all the fat.

I've eaten g'hog. For God's sake don't poison eggs and leave them about as bait.......you have no idea what is going to eat it and if a g'hog does eat and and goes off to die, what is going to chew on the g'hog. It's irresponsible.

wordwiz,

There is a phrase for someone with your attitude : grossly irresponsible. People like you are dangerous in the company of guns, pesticides, etc, since you clearly do not grasp environmental issues. It is your prerogative to eliminate rodents but when you start abusing the environment by poisoning animals higher up the food chain, it is a much more serious issue. Here are just a few of the animals that can and will eat dead rodents: coyotes, vultures, ravens, crows. You and your cats are not the only animals that exist, you know.

Reality to Slimy,

I tend to use only organic pesticides and I have been shooting guns, including rifles, shotguns and pistols for close to 50 years

I am talking about my backyard in a very urban setting - one side bordered by I-75, another with a four-lane highway. I've lived here for over 25 years and have yet to see a coyote, vulture, raven or crow in my back yard. Nor would I let a dead ground piggy carcass lay around a dozen feet from my back door or the windows in the back of my house. You are welcome to ride your high horse as far as you want, but don't expect me to provide it with food or water.

Mike

Head over to your local feed store and ask for a trap they re like 34.99 at TSC here. I bait with what ever they like to eat this week in my garden, they love just about any veggie I grow once trapped they get baptized here. The key is a good trip with a hair trigger snap. Once you get this trap to how you like it ie works do not not lend out to any one seems they like to play with them and takes like 30 min or more to get them just right :)

Oh man..........you sure read a lot into a post. I don't care if you dispatch a groundhog. I am a country person and they can wreck havoc on riding horses when a leg goes in a hole and I've lost my share of produce to their feeding. I also use and enjoy firearms, how do you think I manage to eat things like rodents, pick them up off a road?

My post wasn't meant to be rude, but your's was. I don't have a problem with a good clean shot to a rodent or garden pest if it's done humanely and legally. I've done it myself. I do care about indescriminate use of poisons. I'm a certified pesticide applicator and in a farming profession..... and I know how baits end up where they're not intended. It might even end up in the mouth of somebody's kid who has no business being on your property. I don't expect you to heed a thing I say, but others read this forum too and maybe if they consider acting on a suggestion like leaving poison baits around, they'll be open minded enough to think their actions through before they act on them.

Calliope,

I didn't read your post, let alone read anything into it. Like Slimy, you get on your high horse without knowing anything about my methods, then complain to the mods because my view doesn't agree with yours.'

I know my area, know what kind of animals and people visit it, know the boundaries. One thing I do not have to worry about is some kid coming along, finding a hard boiled egg laying in a trap and finding a way to extract and eat it - we apparently live in different worlds. Nor do I need to be concerned about what animal might eat a dead animal that has consumed a poisoned hard boiled egg, died and is laying feet up between my peppers and potatoes.

Unlike you, I have no clue how baits may end up where they are not intended - maybe I know how to bait animals and take care of them (dispose of them!) the next day.

Like every other Internet forum, this one is mostly for the exchange of ideas and I will stipulate there may be some idiot, someplace, somewhere, at some point in time who may run across this thread and decide, on the basis of one of many replies, to boil an egg, inject it with poison and stick it in their garden where an unintended victim may consume it, or even the intended victim consume it but something else may eat the victim.

Yeah, and I will win the lottery tomorrow.

Mike

I went out to do a morning check on my garden before heading to work this morn. As I'm looking at it, I see the ground start to protrude upward right between my newly sprouted beans. I ran in there as quick as I could and just stomped on it. Not sure how effective that will be, but it was oddly very satisfying.

My live trap is seasoned enough that everything walks in without bait, especially if it is placed against some sort of edge or wall. I caught the first 'hog of the season today, unfortunately it had already nipped down some of my pea plants. Now that the trap has a bit of smell to it again the racoons should be next.

OK, I've been researching a "safer" way to catch a ground hog. This is what I did:

I have this fire pit at the very back of my garden. It's not a big hole, maybe 6' wide and at the very deepest part, 3'. I use it to burn up all kinds of wood I seem to collect - tree limbs and small trunks, stakes that are too rotten to use again, small pieces of dimensional lumber and boards left over from constructing grow chambers, DWC systems, watering trays. It serves to create a significant amount of ashes plus I clean off and re-season all my cast iron skillets and pots. To keep it legal - the FD has visited me a couple of times, I make sure we also have food to grill out handy as well as a tent pitched.

Anyway, a few days after the fire has quit burning, a lay a path to it. Along the path, I place small tubs of water, with stuff ground piggies like - pieces of apple, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce - whatever might entice it to stop and take a drink. It leads right up to my pit.

The last part of the trap is to line part of it with peas - they love them, especially sugar snap. Once it is lined, I hide and wait.

Unable to control itself, the piggy soon wanders out of its hole and starts sampling all the treats I have left. In about 20 minutes, it has arrived at the fire pit, full of water but, as ground hogs are wont to do, ready to eat anything.

Not able to control himself, his bladder or his appetite, he has to take a pea. That's when I run from my spot and kick him in the ash hole.

Mike

ROFL, Mike i can just picture you doing it. And might I say you have a wonderful way with words. On another note though i went out and got a HAH trap and set it up with a hard boild egg (no poison, lol) came out the following day egg was gone but trap not sprung. (I know it works, cus i sneezed when i put it out and it sprung on me) So i reset the trap with another hard boild egg (making sure it was dead center of the trigger. Well i came out egg was gone , trap was tripped, but no freaking groud hog. I have tried, human hair, cat litter (used) and flooding the hole for over 45 minutes and the darn thing is still around. I cant shoot a gun in the city, so thats out. Whats next?

gardenman...Ya really should put that egg behind the tripper. Cut it in pieces to make the GH stay in there long enough to trip the trap.

I've never been able to trap one, but...always get 'em at the end of a shotgun or rifle. There's a SLEW of 'em this year.

A few years ago, one got under the hood of my car, chewed the wiring harness & almost $1,000 later, I quit trying to trap 'em.

I wish i could shoot them, i even have someone who will take it for dinner (havnt reached that stage yet) But i am running out of ideas, the only benifit is it has chaced off the rabbits and skunks i had in my yard....lol

Hire Carl Spackler or groundskeeper Willie

snagged 2 of them. I used broccoli and peaches. found that on another post.(havaheart big cage)

The local groundhogs can not resist melon rind in Have-a-heart traps. Melon rind is nice in that you waste nothing, it was going in the compost bins anyway. Possums, rabbits, and raccoons can not resist it either, so to catch a hog takes three nights. Lord knows what I will do if I ever catch a skunk.

To avoid unwanted critters, don't leave the trap baited at night (close trap door). Skunks, possums and raccoons are nocturnal, woodchucks are up and about during the day.

I set a trap baited with basil and strawberries before I left for work and had trapped a 'chuck by the time I got home.

@glib:
So funny you said "Lord knows what I will do if I ever catch a skunk."

A few years ago, we were overrun by groundhogs, so we bought at Havahart trap.

My husband was so proud when he caught 7 groundhogs in 7 days! He decided to put it out one last time to see if there were anymore and caught a skunk! OMG! Now what?

We checked the Havahart website and they gave great instructions on what to do. I have a video of him slowly walking out to the trap holding up a blanket spread in front of him (make sure it hides your feet too!) so the skunk didn't see him coming. Then he gently dropped the blanket over the Havahart and backed away. A little while later (supposedly after the skunk had gotten calm under the blanket) he went back and was able to gently raise the trap door to let the skunk out.

The skunk did slowly saunter out of the trap and back into the woods. That was the last we saw of of the skunk and the last time we put out that trap!

When I bait my HAH trap, I make a small, J shaped hanger out of wire (usually and old coat hanger). I then make a shish kabob with pungent bait (turnips, brussel sprouts cut in two, cabbage leaves) and hang the bait from the top of the trap directly over the bait pedal (that activates the trap). The critter has to WORK to get at the bait, usually tripping the trap. See below:

{{gwi:51526}}

Quietman

So having read many blogs on this site about GHs I have learned that everyone has an individual groundhog problem. I would like advice on mine.
The large GH eating my garden lives under my neighbor's shed. They just left for a 6-month stay in Denmark and the housesitter is a friend of my wife's, so we have considerable leeway in taking care of this trans-boundary problem.
Some friends told me to get some gopher bombs. I was disappointed that these don't really explode but actually, they apparently burn pretty hot while they generate the poisonous gas, and so it might not blow up the shed but it might burn it down.
Now those neighbors knew they had critters under there, and about the holes, which don't go underground but directly under the shed. Somewhere under the shed floor is the main burrow that I would shove the gopher bombs but (a) I can't see where it is, and (b) I should probably not burn down the shed. Short of renting a forklift to lift the thing up, I'm stymied. Also not sure I have a right to do harm to my neighbor's pets even though they are unattended varmints chewing up every edible in my garden. So far my Have-A-Heart traps (2) have caught me a rabbit, baby possum, and almost a green frog trying to trip the thing.
I dunno. I liked the alligator idea on an earlier post, but maybe somebody has an easier suggestion.

I've been quite sucessful with HAH traps baited with lettuce (GH's favorite!), apples, and carrots. Late last fall we had one take up residence under a neighbor's building. This spring another neighbor and I set out to eliminate this pest before our gardens started to come in. One of her boys shot the GH, but not before I saw 2 little ones playing outside the den. After catching the first one I reset the trap and was surprised to find not one but two in the trap. That makes three when I had only seen 2 outside at a time. I decided to set the trap again and caught the fourth and final one after it set off the trap a few times without getting caught.
The "shish kabob" method looks intriguing but the trick is to make the animal stay in the trap as long as possible. Definately the bait should go as far back in the trap as possible and not on the trigger.

I finally caught my groundhog that ate about 30 carrots and 20 bean plants. I bought a Havahart trap and caught him in 2 hours, using granny smith apples as bait. I released him far from home.

{{gwi:51527}}

Short video on how to remove a skunk from a HH trap

It's Funny!

Here is a link that might be useful: Watch...

why on earth would they release a skunk in a place like that? Skunks like low-lying, wet ground.

ltilton...apparently you didn't see Pepe's tail wag as he headed into the brush. Maybe you should view the video at a slower speed or have your prescription checked.

Just discover the 'chucks were attempting to excavate a summer home under our back corner brush pile. Found only one entrance, so I lit a gopher bomb, shoved it in, and shoveled it shut. Big piles of smoke made me fear for a brush blaze so I wet it down real well with the hose.

Rather anticlimactic, but there were no critters come gasping for breath out of hastily dug holes or anything like that. I figure this is rehearsal for the shed next door.

My dad always plugged up the holes with concrete, but he never got them all. He would have loved to have a HHT. All the times I set a trap I never thought about catching a skunk! Geez! Now I know what to do! I got sprayed by one when I was quite young. Don't want to go through that again!

My neighbor catches skunks regularly and says that in the right size cage, they don't have the room to raise their tail and without raising their tail, they can't spray.

GOT ONE!
Yep, the HAH trap finally worked. Maybe i won't have to blow up the neighbor's shed.
I followed all the hints I've seen on these blogs. Used a piece of corn, sliced from a fresh ear, protruding into the cage on a wire. Threw dirt into the cage so the bottom wasn't just wire mesh. Propped the bottom and weighed down the top so it wouldn't wiggle when entered.
And mainly, I realized that my strategy of blocking off the holes under the fence was dunderheaded. Instead I faced the trap directly at the main hole under the fence, and blocked off the spaces around it. So the GH wants to go through the passage, and it looks a bit different, BUT there is light at the other end, plus a piece of corn.
Well, the cage was stunk up like a zoo smell, so after a quasi-legal deportation, I washed off the trap and will see if there are any gullible family members under the shed.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Oh, I just love seein' pictures of success. :)

As my username suggests, my dogs help me with my groundhog problem. The groundhogs never make it to my garden beds. My dogs do a great job at keeping them away, the downside is occasionally they actually catch one and I have to remove the corpse. Gack!!

Caught #2 yesterday! Same technique. Exported to same location, 10 miles away, across a lake, and removed from houses and fields so I may not be causing somebody else a headache.
Somebody mentioned trapping 7 GHs in 7 days, so I am going to leave that trap set for a while.
My next problem is how to make sure other Mormota monax (that's short for GH) don't move in under the neighbor's shed. I've heard that this is pretty common. Somebody mentioned kitty litter soaked in ammonia - I wonder how long this lasts.

Hi, it's Wuzzat again. This year I have caught 7 woodchucks using the same Havahart methods mentioned earlier. The question is, how many of these consarned things do I have to catch before the population is decimated? Or do they multiply as fast as (or faster than) I can catch them??
Anyway, if I hadn't apprehended the 7 varmints, the garden would have been flattened. So I guess I just keep baiting the traps (apple pieces work fine, by the way).