Ground Squirrel and Prairie Dog Solutions

Coyote on the hunt for ground squirrels. Ground Squirrel and Prairie Dog problems can be frustrating, costly and even dangerous.  Can doing nothing be the answer to my ground squirrel problems?  Relying on Predators for Rodent Control Rattlesnakes  and  Gopher snakes  eat ground squirrels and prairie dogs. The snakes go after the young squirrels because the adults are not easy prey for them to devour. Adult ground squirrels have even been known to fight and bite snakes, including rattlers! Another interesting fact: male California ground squirrels are sometimes immune to rattle snake venom. Here's an idea...if you see a gopher snake on the road, safely relocate it to the nearest ground squirrel hole. The snake will have a safe place to hide and may discover dinner inside. Coyotes & Badgers  enjoy eating ground squirrels - when they can catch them. Sometimes they pair up as hunting buddies. The badger digs for the squirrels and the co...

Ground squirrels driving you crazy? What if you want to get rid of them, but really don't want to do anything.  How can you have nature solve your solve your ground squirrel problem? Encourage Predators Rattlesnakes and Gopher snakes eat ground squirrels. The snakes go after the young squirrels because the adults are not easy prey for them to devour. Adult ground squirrels have even been known to fight and bite snakes, including rattlers! I'll share more info on their fights in another blog. Here's an idea...if you see a gopher snake on your road, safely relocate it to the nearest ground squirrel hole. The snake will have a safe place to hide and may discover dinner inside. Coyotes enjoy eating ground squirrels - when they can catch them. Sometimes they'll try to dig for them like this video of Mike's black lab, Pepper. Hopefully, a coyote would be hungrier than Pepper, and catch the destructive rodent. Raptors Raptors like the Red-tailed hawks,...

Dogs love to hunt for ground squirrels. Below, is one of our squirrel hunters from the ranch. Actually, Pepper is more of squirrel chaser and not much of a catcher. We rarely have squirrels at the ranch, so Pepper doesn't get much practice. Here she is sitting on her buddy, Brutus, in the duck blind. (Don't tell Mike, but his great duck hunting dog is really a cuddly lap dog - even in the duck blind.) Dogs really can help with ground squirrel control. Jack Russell Terriers, Rat Terriers or pretty much any dog that is feisty enough will make an excellent squirrel hunter. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and patience to get those digging rodents. Unfortunately, when a large property is ridden with hundreds of holes, the task becomes pretty much impossible for a dog. Of course, it doesn't mean that the dog won't love trying! When our dogs go up on the hill, they are on high alert for ground squirrels. Sometimes they get lucky and a neighboring squirr...

When someone mentions hunting, usually ground squirrels aren't the first thing that comes to mind. Surprisingly, there are people that regularly hunt ground squirrels and then line up all of their dead little bodies for photos. I'll let you search online for that yourself, because I am currently erasing those pictures from my memory. Do you know who really loves to hunt for ground squirrels? Dogs. Cats probably do too, they just don't like to show their excitement; they like to play it cool. Here's a photo of Jake with his prize catch. He was so thrilled that he brought the ground squirrel into the barn to show off. I didn't want to see if the critter would be Jake's afternoon snack, so we picked it up and set it on the truck bumper and went to get a shovel. Ground squirrels are full of surprises! That little guy was playing possum! He jumped off the bumper and ran away! Jake's favorite hunting buddy was Orwood, our ranch cat. Orwood l...