Ground Squirrel and Prairie Dog Solutions

THE BIG QUESTION:   Do Ground Squirrels Climb Trees? Mike and I finally made it to the The Nut Show. Too many people told us that's just where we belong. Not sure what they meant by that...hopefully, it's because of our machine. The Burrow Blocker fills in ground squirrel holes; we don't deal with tree squirrels. So why are ground squirrels a problem for Nut Growers? It turns out that ground squirrels love nuts like their cousins, the tree squirrel. The Burrow Blocker booth at the  West Coast Nut Conference was a popular place. Our large banner with the ground squirrel was a scary reminder of the nut growers' gnawing and thieving nemesis, the ground squirrel. Growers don't see a ground squirrel, they see dollar signs being subtracted from the the value of their total yield. Besides stealing and burying nuts, the ground squirrels destroy new trees, gnaw on bark, chew holes in irrigation lines, and undermine the trees' root systems by burrowing beneath them....

A Ground Squirrel Explosion?!! This is the time of year that we start getting desperate calls for help. It seems like overnight, orchards, fields, parks and yards are overrun with ground squirrels. To better understand the situation we need to talk about sex...ground squirrel reproduction that is. Their mating system is officially called: polygynandrous. That means they are promiscuous litter critters that mate with up to 4 others. If you were wondering why you haven't seen them on their dates, it's because they copulate underground.  When ground squirrels emerge from hibernation the first thing on their mind is sex. Is it surprising that the males emerge a few weeks earlier than the females? They just can't wait.  This is their big chance because the females only produce one litter per year. (I've heard from a few biologists that they sometimes mate again if they lose their litter, but I can't find that in writing.) In California, breeding season runs fro...

Squirrel Busters Organic Squirrel Abatement consists of the dynamic duo of Mark and Wyatt Trost. They are a father and son team that won the ground squirrel battle on their own land in Chowchilla, California. Their almonds and grapes are safer and are they are out saving others from those dastardly diggers! Read about Wyatt's ground squirrel experiences: Wyatt Trost checking the sand level in the Burrow Blocker hopper. "When I first heard about the Burrow Blocker machine, squirrels were already a major problem in our field. My dad and I had tried a variety of things from stuffing a flare down the hole to different poisons. I remember the last method we tried before finding the Burrow Blocker. When we found a hole in the ground and we stuck a pellet in it. This pellet had some fancy scientific name that I can never seem to remember. When it came in contact with moisture it would turn into a gas. I found it fascinating, but the gas was just as deadly to us as to the s...