gunDriller
22nd January 2013, 05:05 PM
I have a growing ground squirrel problem.
I actually think they are kind of cute. I've always like rodents, the smarter ones, like some rats are very smart, like little dogs.
Anyway, I went to the farm supply store warehouse today, after buying a box of .30-30 Winchester. The best adviser guy in the store told me to look for "Travis", because I was asking questions about dealing with ground squirrels using rodent-eating snakes like Bull, rat, corn, and King-snakes.
Travis has reptiles, currently just a big lizard. But he was quite honest about the ability of snakes to deal with an exponentially growing ground squirrel supply - said I would need 10 of them.
One of his co-workers, who had given the lizard to Travis and was also knowledgeable on the subject, said I needed to get a barn cat. Said it would eat 1 ground squirrel a day
I don't want to use poison, partially because I don't want the smell of 100 dead decaying ground squirrels in my home.
Although, actually, the ground squirrels are under my home, and also in the area around my bath-tub. Travis's co-worker said he had seen infestations where there were 3 or 4 nests in the molded area around the underside of the bath-tub.
Those are the sounds that I am hearing - ground squirrels raising baby ground squirrels, ground squirrels mating, ground squirrels running around and around my bathtub. It's a creepy sound - I would like to record it.
So I guess, the Humane Society charges about $30 for a cat. That is the donation to help pay for the spaying & neutering that they do.
(Of course, I could always get some non-neutered cats and let them proliferate and then EAT them. Separate subject. :) )
Anyway, it looks like, if I don't want to have 200+ Ground Squirrels in a few weeks, I need to make a small hole in the cover to the crawl-space, and get myself a barn cat.
The other thing I learned today is that it takes about 3 years after you buy a 5 foot tall $40 apple tree for it to bear fruit.
I have 3 apple trees that are about 4 feet tall in my living room, and 5 or 6 that are about a foot tall.
So if I am really nice to the apple trees I already have, I can be growing my own apples in 3 years.
The ones I have are raised from seed. I know they say that those tend to be mushy, but I don't really care.
Back to the subject of ground squirrels.
I hear they have this thing called the Mouse-trap.
http://0.tqn.com/w/experts/Pest-Control-1500/2007/10/Rodent-1.jpg
The fire-arms approach -
http://www.chuckhawks.com/oregon_massacre2.jpg
"Nate drew first blood with his .17 HMR Savage, blowing the unfortunate sand rat in half at about 50 yards. It's a very bad thing to be a small rodent hit by a .17 HMR slug at short range !"
http://www.reptilechannel.com/images/reptile-news/snake-mouse-500.jpg
No, I'm not going to eat the ground squirrels. :)
I actually think they are kind of cute. I've always like rodents, the smarter ones, like some rats are very smart, like little dogs.
Anyway, I went to the farm supply store warehouse today, after buying a box of .30-30 Winchester. The best adviser guy in the store told me to look for "Travis", because I was asking questions about dealing with ground squirrels using rodent-eating snakes like Bull, rat, corn, and King-snakes.
Travis has reptiles, currently just a big lizard. But he was quite honest about the ability of snakes to deal with an exponentially growing ground squirrel supply - said I would need 10 of them.
One of his co-workers, who had given the lizard to Travis and was also knowledgeable on the subject, said I needed to get a barn cat. Said it would eat 1 ground squirrel a day
I don't want to use poison, partially because I don't want the smell of 100 dead decaying ground squirrels in my home.
Although, actually, the ground squirrels are under my home, and also in the area around my bath-tub. Travis's co-worker said he had seen infestations where there were 3 or 4 nests in the molded area around the underside of the bath-tub.
Those are the sounds that I am hearing - ground squirrels raising baby ground squirrels, ground squirrels mating, ground squirrels running around and around my bathtub. It's a creepy sound - I would like to record it.
So I guess, the Humane Society charges about $30 for a cat. That is the donation to help pay for the spaying & neutering that they do.
(Of course, I could always get some non-neutered cats and let them proliferate and then EAT them. Separate subject. :) )
Anyway, it looks like, if I don't want to have 200+ Ground Squirrels in a few weeks, I need to make a small hole in the cover to the crawl-space, and get myself a barn cat.
The other thing I learned today is that it takes about 3 years after you buy a 5 foot tall $40 apple tree for it to bear fruit.
I have 3 apple trees that are about 4 feet tall in my living room, and 5 or 6 that are about a foot tall.
So if I am really nice to the apple trees I already have, I can be growing my own apples in 3 years.
The ones I have are raised from seed. I know they say that those tend to be mushy, but I don't really care.
Back to the subject of ground squirrels.
I hear they have this thing called the Mouse-trap.
http://0.tqn.com/w/experts/Pest-Control-1500/2007/10/Rodent-1.jpg
The fire-arms approach -
http://www.chuckhawks.com/oregon_massacre2.jpg
"Nate drew first blood with his .17 HMR Savage, blowing the unfortunate sand rat in half at about 50 yards. It's a very bad thing to be a small rodent hit by a .17 HMR slug at short range !"
http://www.reptilechannel.com/images/reptile-news/snake-mouse-500.jpg
No, I'm not going to eat the ground squirrels. :)