12 Responses

1. ryan Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

   In order to conquer an animal you must think like an animal and look like an animal.

   ryan,
   So far it hasn’t worked. They still out think me and I’ll never be so cute. I’ve even tried smelling like an animal but all that got me was plenty of elbow space.

2. cindee Says:
   May 6th, 2009 at 10:06 pm

   Now look at that cute little face! How could you deny that?(-: Maybe he can come inside and have a snack before bed(-:

   cindee,
   I can’t deny he has a cute little face and I’m more than willing to give him a snack before dead time.

3. Tatyana Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 2:38 am

   He is cute!

   Tatyana,
   I have to admit he is cute. But he’s not some little pretty that can get away with things because he bats his eyelashes at me. He better have a pair of Ruby Shoes and head for Kansas.

4. Sande Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 8:02 am

   They’re like pretty weeds – still a weed if it’s growing where you don’t want it! My mom declared war on chipmunks a few years ago and I was outraged, now I have them and I understand…

   Sande,
   We have a defensive perimeter set up around the house to keep the squirrels and chipmunks away. It’s manned round the clock by the cats and dog.

5. mlc Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 9:22 am

   Hey. The male contingent uses them for target practice off the deck. They are working on trying to pick one off at 500 yards. Sande is so right–they are like pretty weeds. If you leave one around for a pet-the next year the entire barn foundation is gone and the hayfields look like a golf course gone horribly wrong. Then–sometimes it seems that picking them off one at a time just encourages them to multiply and fill up the empty space. So what is a gardener to do
   The dogs like them dead. I like them not.

   mlc,
   I only hate the destructive ones. So far I haven’t seen one I’ve liked.

6. Lynn Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 10:07 am

   In the hay fields where I walk our Beagle, there are so many holes that it must be someone’s hobby hay field. In winter, you can’t see them, so you fall in (if you’re me, you fall in more than once till you get the lay of the land). The Beagle wants to go down into the burrows, but I have visions of a vast Chuck Army coming at us with those teeth!

   Lynn,
   Time to make little plastic explosive woodchucks.

7. Heather Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 10:32 am

   Round here they call them Rockchucks, in Northern California I always thought they were Groundhogs. Pretty universal animal with destructive behavior. Really a shame since they are so darn cute!

   Heather,
   Groundhogs are a fairly universal name. If I had my way they wouldn’t have a chance to see their shadow.

8. Lisa Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

   Oh yes, target practice! They are trying to destroy the foundation of my mom’s barn, and she has tried everything to run them out: broken glass in the burrows, poison, motor oil in the burrows, moth balls in the burrows, etc. The only poison that works is the yellow fly bait crystals from the feed store, but other animals eat the poison, too. I use castor oil to keep them out from under my deck, and that seems to work for me but not my mom. I took the .22 rifle over and stopped a big one right in his tracks-THAT worked! (I’m gonna brag a moment-it was such a good shot, that varmint didn’t move a single muscle. That’s right.

9. Ratty Says:
   May 7th, 2009 at 5:44 pm

   Be careful with starting wars with rodents. They don’t usually seem to work out very well.

10. Grammy Says:
    May 8th, 2009 at 4:49 pm

    We fought the ground hog for years. He took over our current home and sat in our lazy boy slept in our bed when we were in St. Louis. He removed 2×4.s we used to board him out. He tore off vents. broke through the plumbing and the floor. We finally won the battle by barricading the craw space with tons of rock place at a slant around the foundation. But now we battle the skunk as she can find and dig out the old access and enter. We caught and released 7 last year. This year we were skunked once but did not catch her. only a black and white cat and a opossum.

    Grammy,
    Yea some of the wildlife has real nerve. The deer here ring the doorbell and ask for handouts.

11. Giddy Says:
    May 12th, 2009 at 7:54 am

    We had a ground hog dig a nice burrow right next to the veggie garden a couple of years ago. How convenient! He could just poke his head out and take a bite out of every ripe tomato! I was just about to get the 9mm out and load it and then we had 7 inches of rain overnight. It obviously flooded his burrow and we never saw him again. Darn, and I was looking forward to a bit of target practice!

    Giddy,
    I trapped our garden raider in a culvert but in the end I let him go. I didn’t have the heart to let it die a slow death. It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have used a baseball bat on him though.

12. Steve Says:
    August 25th, 2009 at 10:41 pm

    I really didn’t mind the woodchuck at first, but after he ate my siding, my fiancee’s rock garden and my canna lillies, enough was enough.

    The animal control officer told me that the problem with these critters is that no one is shooting them anymore. So I fed him something he liked, raw hamburger. I also added something to sweeten it, and he hasn’t been since since.

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