It’s an age old battle for barn managers, ground hogs. Groundhog holes in pastures are one of our worst nightmares! Horse running and playing and stepping in groundhog holes never has a happy ending. I am sure my fellow barn managers can relate….I have tried everything I can think of to get them OUT of my fields. We get a little Caddy Shack on them…Ok, I am dating myself. Perhaps Postal would be a better, yet politically incorrect way of describing it.
I have shot them, poisoned them, flooded their holes with water, trapped them, smoked them and I am sure a few other things that I have forgotten! Here is the thing…if you kill the one that lives in that hole and then fill that hole in, it’s only a matter of time before Groundhog Realtors R Us finds another resident for that hole! Then, the whole process starts over again.
One day I was sitting on the bench in front of the barn having my morning coffee with barn cat Eros. It’s what we did every morning after the horse’s needs were met. We would sit there in the beautiful morning sun. I would drink my coffee, he would purr up a storm as I petted him. It was our ritual!
So as we enjoyed our morning ritual,l I watch two of our resident vermin doing what they do. There was the groundhog from the bank barn…let’s call him Barney. There was the groundhog from the kitchen garden…let’s call him Kit. Barney and Kit were going about their business.
About halfway between the two of them was an apple tree with apples on the ground beneath it. Kit found his way up to the tree and was munching away on apples. Barney wanted nothing to do with this! He would charge over and chase Kit back down to his garden.
This went on for a few days. Finally the light bulb went on for me! I have been going about this ALL wrong! Groundhogs are territorial. They don’t let other groundhogs in their area! Instead of killing them over and over and over and over again, I need to work WITH them.
So I went out into my fields and fenced off the groundhog holes, like you would do for tree boxes. I had a conversation outside of each hole. People would have thought I was crazy…but I am a horse person…so that is a given! The conversation went like this: “Ok Groundhog, I will let you live here, in my pasture if you don’t dig any new holes, AND you don’t let any other groundhogs move into the area.”
Guess what??? It worked. They did what they do, I did what I do, no new holes, no new groundhogs! We had finally reached a symbiotic relationship! I would look out to see groundhogs grazing in fields. They didn’t allow any other groundhogs to invade their territory and they did not add any new holes!
Simple and amazing! All because Eros and I got to thinking while having our coffee together in the morning. All because of Kit and Barney.
I have shot them, poisoned them, flooded their holes with water, trapped them, smoked them and I am sure a few other things that I have forgotten! Here is the thing…if you kill the one that lives in that hole and then fill that hole in, it’s only a matter of time before Groundhog Realtors R Us finds another resident for that hole! Then, the whole process starts over again.
One day I was sitting on the bench in front of the barn having my morning coffee with barn cat Eros. It’s what we did every morning after the horse’s needs were met. We would sit there in the beautiful morning sun. I would drink my coffee, he would purr up a storm as I petted him. It was our ritual!
So as we enjoyed our morning ritual,l I watch two of our resident vermin doing what they do. There was the groundhog from the bank barn…let’s call him Barney. There was the groundhog from the kitchen garden…let’s call him Kit. Barney and Kit were going about their business.
About halfway between the two of them was an apple tree with apples on the ground beneath it. Kit found his way up to the tree and was munching away on apples. Barney wanted nothing to do with this! He would charge over and chase Kit back down to his garden.
This went on for a few days. Finally the light bulb went on for me! I have been going about this ALL wrong! Groundhogs are territorial. They don’t let other groundhogs in their area! Instead of killing them over and over and over and over again, I need to work WITH them.
So I went out into my fields and fenced off the groundhog holes, like you would do for tree boxes. I had a conversation outside of each hole. People would have thought I was crazy…but I am a horse person…so that is a given! The conversation went like this: “Ok Groundhog, I will let you live here, in my pasture if you don’t dig any new holes, AND you don’t let any other groundhogs move into the area.”
Guess what??? It worked. They did what they do, I did what I do, no new holes, no new groundhogs! We had finally reached a symbiotic relationship! I would look out to see groundhogs grazing in fields. They didn’t allow any other groundhogs to invade their territory and they did not add any new holes!
Simple and amazing! All because Eros and I got to thinking while having our coffee together in the morning. All because of Kit and Barney.
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