It is WAR! (Voles, rabbits, racoon, squirrel and wasp.) Oh My!

[flowerbug]

Gopherhawk looks like it will do the job for deeper tunnels - i'm not sure if it will work for shallower ones that moles can do nearer the surface. good luck!

for wasps i go out in the morning when it is cool and knock down any nests they are building on the eaves of the house and if there are any near places i might be working in a garden. the colder it is the less active they'll be. if you hold a bucket with a little soapy water in it under the nest then the wasps/etc will also fall into the water and can't get back out.

for mice it is important to find the gaps they're using to get into the house and seal those up. spray foam to fill and caulk the outside to protect it from the weather.

 

[Carol Dee]

Well, that is one coon gone! While waiting for morning it tore up everything it could get it's stinking paws on! Needless to say, DH will reset trap on the grass to see if there are any of it's kin around tonight.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Needless to say, DH will reset trap on the grass to see if there are any of it's kin around tonight.

I've caught raccoons on three consecutive nights. Just because you get one doesn't mean you got them all. I can assure you it was not the same raccoon.

 

[flowerbug]

Well, that is one coon gone! While waiting for morning it tore up everything it could get it's stinking paws on! Needless to say, DH will reset trap on the grass to see if there are any of it's kin around tonight.
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we learned about that too when trapping to put down a sheet of tin plate underneath and out a ways so they couldn't tear everything up. after weeks and weeks of nearly daily transporting of the critters to the state forests we decided that it just wasn't worth the time and hassle involved. we could trap a raccoon or groundhog almost every night and sometimes twice a day if we got a groundhog and then a raccoon at night.

now i just shoot the groundhogs and the raccoons don't get into what we plant because we don't usually plant much that they care about other than the large sweet onions inside the fence they might uproot a few thinking the plugs of potting soil have goodies in there but since they don't find anything they eventually learn and leave them alone. that means we don't have many potted plants around anywhere and we don't grow sweet corn (we don't have a good enough or an electric hot wire fence to put around it).

 

[flowerbug]

I've caught raccoons on three consecutive nights. Just because you get one doesn't mean you got them all. I can assure you it was not the same raccoon.

where we're at they have a highway from the woods right through our property. i'm pretty sure if i wanted to live off meat from wild game like raccoons, groundhogs and rabbits i could be pretty well set here.

 

[Ridgerunner]

we learned about that too when trapping to put down a sheet of tin plate underneath and out a ways so they couldn't tear everything up.

I cut a piece of plywood a little bigger than the footprint of the trap and wired that to the base of the trap. That helped stabilize the trap so they couldn't turn it over so easily. I also built a box that fit over the trap so the only way to the bait is through the front door. Having the trap basically enclosed really came in handy when I trapped a skunk.