Thursday, April 14, 2016

A Time To Kill

We've got a scourge of groundhogs in fields #2 and #3. This is a dangerous situation for the horses, and the groundhogs have to go. He's mapped out all the holes in both fields. We have the materials needed to eradicate them. Timing is critical.

Groundhogs build elaborate burrows. They evolve over time, expanding for needed family expansion. The groundhog prefers open country and the edges of woodland, and is rarely far from a burrow entrance. Since the clearing of forests provided it with a much more suitable habitat, the groundhog population is probably higher now than it was before the arrival of settlers in North America. Their ability to reproduce quickly has tended to mitigate the depopulating effects of sport hunting.

Over the last six years we've tried our best to control them in the fields. Groundhogs are persistent. He's gotten a few of them with his .22, but not enough to make a dent in the overall population.

With my car loaded up with two kinds of soil, tamper, shovel, rodent bombs, lighter, duct tape and sticks, we headed out at twilight. A beautiful cool spring evening. A good day for dying.

We bombed four holes in field #3. A couple of the holes were chronically used dens. I've bombed them in the past, and they keep moving back in.

He taped the bomb to a long stick, lit the bomb and put the stick in the burrow, as far as he could reach. We then shoveled dirt into the hole, while the smoke was coming out. We put in regular dirt, and then top soil, tamping it down so that no smoke escaped. Really hoping that we got four holes permanently shut down.

We move on to field #2 another night.

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