From: songbird@anthive.com   
      
   Pavel314 wrote:   
   ...   
   > We've had a problem recently with a woodchuck (ground hog) eating my wife's   
   hot pepper plants and the hostas she planted around the oak out front. I   
   bought a gopher bomb and threw it down the burrow this afternoon. We'll see if   
   it works. I have some    
   fox urine spray to put out there tomorrow; I bought it to put around the traps   
   when I had coyote problems last year. Didn't work.   
      
     hostas are edible so any herbivore will enjoy them.   
   groundhogs only eat the tender tops off most plants   
   here.  i can tolerate their damage as usually the plant   
   can survive and still produce something.   
      
     the smoke bomb may have got them out of the burrow   
   but if you don't plug the hole up well they'll be back.   
   i have a persistent problem with them because of the   
   many large ditches here.  in order to keep them from   
   redigging their burrow out i had to pound metal and   
   wood stakes in the ground after i filled the burrow   
   back in.  this would take them long enough to try to   
   dig back out that i finally could hunt the adults so   
   they were removed ( :( ).  that does not mean a new   
   family won't try to move in.   
      
     to keep the new ones from making new burrows i would   
   have to fence the entire edge of the ditch, which is   
   not easy to do with my legs the past year so i keep the   
   air rifle handy and have kept them on the run any time   
   they show up in the yard on this side of the fence.  if   
   you can get rid of the young ones (they're not too   
   smart when young) when they show up you can keep them   
   mostly in check.   
      
     in a live trap for bait the black oil sunflower seeds   
   work pretty well.  i close up the trap near dusk because   
   otherwise i'd have a new raccoon in the trap each morning.   
   i've given up on trapping and relocating anything.  if i   
   trap a groundhog it's dead.  i tried using the trap a few   
   weeks ago and ended up trapping a semi-feral or feral   
   kitty.  it was pretty healthy so i just let it go again.   
   i haven't reset the trap.  i think the adult groundhogs   
   are too smart, but we'll see how this season goes.   
      
      
     songbird   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)