Groundhogs, also known as woodchucks, are large rodents native to North America. Related to squirrels, groundhogs look like cat-sized creatures with stocky bodies, small heads, short ears, and strong claws. They are exceptional diggers and create burrowing systems that can go as deep as six feet and have multiple entrances.
Notorious for burrowing through lawns, gardens, orchards, along roads, and underneath structures, they have become one of the more common and undesirable nuisance animals. If you are plagued by one or more woodchucks, there are both DIY and professional removal options available to you.
Can Groundhogs Damage Your Home?
Groundhogs are herbivores and love to invade home gardens and raid farm fields. They cause significant damage to lawns, in which they create large holes and unsightly mounds. They have a voracious appetite for residential flower and vegetable gardens, farm crops, and orchard fruits. Their burrowing not only causes landscape damage but can also upend sidewalks and cause costly damage to structures such as sheds, patios, and foundations.
It’s important to remain cautious around groundhogs as they carry parasites and, in rare instances, rabies too.
How to Get Rid of Groundhogs Under Your Shed
The best DIY options for getting rid of groundhogs under the shed are to either use a ‘Have a Heart’ trap and relocate the nuisance or install a wire fence around your shed. Both of these have drawbacks.
Before trapping and relocating a groundhog, you must check your local ordinances, as it is often illegal to relocate animals. If it is not illegal, you need to take it a minimum of five miles away because groundhogs can find their way back. In addition, your trap needs to be carefully monitored, as leaving a groundhog in a trap for too long is inhumane.
When installing a fence, it needs to be dug into the ground 12 inches with the bottom of the mesh sloping outward.
Your best solution is to call in a professional wildlife removal company such as Critter Control. They are fully versed in local ordinances and experienced in removing groundhogs humanely and effectively using the right bait and traps. Groundhogs can become aggressive when trapped. By hiring Critter Control, you are not putting yourself in harm’s way. Critter control will also be able to provide you with long-term preventive solutions so the problem does not reoccur.
How to Prevent Groundhogs from Digging Under Your Shed
If you live in an area with a sizable population of groundhogs, it’s important to keep groundhogs away from your shed. What’s needed to accomplish this is a combination of deterrents and habitat modifications:
- A meshed fence that goes at least 12 inches into the ground and ends with the mesh bent at a 90-degree angle that extends away from the shed prevents groundhogs from digging underneath.
- Repellents made of things groundhogs find unpleasant to smell will keep them away. These can be homemade and contain items such as garlic, rosemary, lavender, sage, and mint, but they will have to be reapplied as the strength of the odor will lessen over time.
- Eliminate food sources by picking up fallen fruit from your trees, not leaving pet food and water outside in your yard, and ensuring that your compost bins and trash cans are not accessible.
- Keep your bushes trimmed and pick up brush and other natural debris to eliminate places where groundhogs can take cover.
- Maintain a well-trimmed lawn. Groundhogs are attracted to taller grass.
How to Get Rid of Groundhogs Under Your House
Homeownership would become a bit easier if all you had to do was deliver an eviction notice to the groundhogs living under your house. There are two directions you can take; you can try to eliminate them yourself, or you can call in the professionals, Critter Control.
Getting Rid of Groundhogs on Your Own
Some do-it-yourself methods include making the area inhospitable to groundhogs in your yard so they choose to leave for greener pastures, so to speak. These methods include repellents such as predator urine, deterrents such as fencing around garden beds and sheds, and habitat modification such as maintaining a trim yard. It’s a labor-intensive process as most of these activities must be kept up to be effective.
Hiring a professional groundhog removal service has many benefits. Critter Control has the expertise and experience to humanely trap and remove groundhogs from your property. Homeowners can also do this, but you need to know local ordinances. In addition, groundhogs will become aggressive when trapped, and they carry diseases and parasites. For safety’s sake, it’s best to let Critter Control do the trapping.
Other benefits of using Critter Control are:
- You will be certain the entire infestation is gone.
- They provide exclusion and repair services to restore your property and lessen the chances of their return.
- Critter Control provides you with a guarantee.
- Using Critter Control keeps you, your family, and your pets safe during the process.
How to Prevent Groundhogs from Digging Under Your House
If you see groundhogs scampering around your yard but have no groundhog holes right next to your home, you’ll want to take precautions before they start digging under your house. A groundhog tunnel can run 65 feet long and can damage your foundation. Steps to take include:
- Installing a physical barrier around your home. Examples include a mesh fence or skirting that goes 12 inches underground with an end that bends at a 90-degree angle away from the house or a poured concrete barrier that’s more permanent.
- Make your environment less attractive to groundhogs by eliminating food sources such as fallen fruit, outdoor pet food, and easy access to trash and compost.
- Reduce their ability to hide and play in the yard by removing brush and debris, trimming bushes, and keeping the lawn mowed.
- Using repellents such as predator urine, owl decoys, and automatic sprinklers.
How to Keep Groundhogs Away
Combining exclusion methods, repellents, and deterrents is the best way to keep groundhogs away. You’ll first need to assess your property and where your vulnerabilities lie. If you have fruit trees or a vegetable garden, you’ll need to protect those with a mesh fence dug 12 inches into the ground. For fruit trees, you’ll want to be vigilant about picking up the fallen fruit that can not only attract groundhogs but other nuisance animals as well.
Try planting fennel, chives, geraniums, and lavender in your garden or around the perimeter of your yard. Groundhogs don’t like those plants. Groundhogs have a strong sense of smell, so you can try sprinkling cayenne pepper or garlic around plantings. To scare groundhogs off, water your lawn with an automatic sprinkler that turns on and off sporadically or when activated by motion. Nothing works better to keep them away than a mesh fence around garden beds and structures.
Professional groundhog removal services are best equipped to inspect your property and inform you of what will keep groundhogs away. Because of the costly damage groundhogs create, it is in your best interest to call in the experts.
Home Remedies to Get Rid of Groundhogs
The internet is full of DIY solutions for how to get rid of groundhogs in the yard. Some just don’t work, while others only work for a short while.
Blood meal is one deterrent found online that is said to work. Blood meal is a common plant fertilizer made from blood. The premise is that groundhogs believe it is from a predator. Rain will quickly wash away the scent, and groundhogs quickly realize there are no predators around and begin to ignore it. One problem with using blood meal is that it can attract carnivorous animals to your yard.
Another example of an ineffective remedy is the use of noisemakers such as wind chimes or ultrasonic sound emitters. Groundhogs become used to these sounds quickly, and the range of area these noisemakers cover is small compared to the travels of a groundhog in your yard.
How to Get Rid of Groundhogs With Ammonia
Ammonia-soaked rags placed at a groundhog’s burrow entrance have been said to repel them. This is another ineffective solution that can cause harm. The smell of ammonia evaporates quickly, so while the groundhog might be initially repelled, when it comes back after a short break elsewhere, the scent is gone.
In a yard where people and pets relax and play, ammonia puts off fumes that are not healthy to breathe in.
How to Get Rid of Groundhogs With Mothballs
Mothballs are one deterrent found online that is said to work because of their strong odor. The reality is that groundhogs don’t seem to be as adverse to the scent of mothballs as much as we are. They tend to ignore mothballs. In addition to its scent fading fairly quickly, mothballs contain chemicals that are harmful to the environment, as well as your children and pets playing in the yard.
When to Call Professional Groundhog Removal Services
Removing groundhogs is a challenge because of the intricate tunnels they create. Whenever you have an infestation that can cause costly damage to your property and home, calling Critter Control will not only ensure your nuisance animal problem will be completely solved but also save you time and money on homemade remedies that are of limited value.
Critter Control is a professional wildlife removal service with over 40 years in the business across the US. We specialize in humane nuisance animal removal, exclusion, and restoration. This means that in addition to removing the groundhogs on your property, we will provide you with a plan for keeping them out and restoring your property to its original condition. Call Critter Control for more information and to schedule a free inspection.