Ground Squirrel and Prairie Dog Solutions

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...

Are ground squirrels making you a little nutty? What crazy methods have you tried to control them? Before we created the Burrow Blocker, our ranch was over run by ground squirrels. We were so desperate for solutions that we tried almost everything to get their population under control. Since we didn't want to risk poisoning our dogs, cats or other wildlife with pesticides, we tended to get pretty creative. Here are a few crazy things that we've tried: Wrigley's Gum - I'm not sure why it had to be Wrigley's gum but we heard it worked, so we tried it. First we put the sticks of gum in the holes and a few weeks later, when the ground squirrels were as plentiful as ever, we thought maybe we should have chewed it first. We had lots of holes and lots of gum and our jaws got tired pretty quickly. All we ended up with was fresh breath and gum stuck to our shoes...and still too many ground squirrels. Water - The next idea was to just fl...