Old Ground Hog Tunnels

[knightrider]

Have any of you ever had old ground hog tunnels collapse? When I moved in to my farm I spent a lot of time getting the ground hog or hogs out of my barn. there were holes in one double stalled room that I used for my goats when I had them… and there were others too. I managed to get rid of them by mainly putting used kitty litter in them. We now cohabitate with them living on the edge of my pastures in rock piles.

I’ve done a lot of renovations to make the barn useable, but one of the stalls that I leveled and put blue stone in really sank in a couple places badly. I thought it was because of the flooding issue that I just fixed. but my contractor was wondering if it wasn’t the old ground hog tunnels.

I’m now opening 2 stalls in my 10 stall barn to make a run in shed and when the the contractor mentioned that, I remembered that this area is where my holes were and now I’m worried about them

Any idea how i can remedy this? Temporarily, I will probably put gates up and not use the stalls as a run in… but this is also where I"m going to store my tractor. I don’t want my tractor to sink either…any ideas would be appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

[trailpal]

I would get a potato fork or mattock and collapse the holes and burrows, add more flooring/dirt to level and then your bluestone on top of that. You’ll need to tamp it down well, there are heavy “plates with a handle” to do it manually (smaller spaces or if you have a bunch of people to trade off doing it), or you can rent a tamper with an engine for a larger area.

Glad you were able to arrange a truce with the ground hogs so they are at your pasture edges instead of in your barn/pastures.

[Foxglove]

You might want to reconsider the treaty with the Ground Hogs. They will have two openings to their tunnels --one on the treeline and one in the flat area of the pasture just your side of the fence. Those are a hazard to horses who can step in them and break a leg. Look on line for groundhogs and you 'll see that each tunnel has two or more holes attached to it. These are the one critter we shoot to kill on our place --everything else is live trapped and released --but a broken leg from a ground hog hole isn’t happening on my watch.

Foxglove

[goodhors]

My ground hogs are outside the fences, because they have no cover near the barn or inside the pasture with my constant mowing. They run under the fence to come graze on grass plants, but none of their holes are on my side of the wire.

So while “landscaping” the barn area is nice, it provides cover for ground hogs and their burrows. I keep my outside barn walls pretty clean, BARE ground, spray the weeds and whack off what grows anyway, so it is NOT sheltered with greenery or welcoming to Varmints of any type.

I would rent the power tamper from your local Rent-All place. Run it to see if any ground drops in the stalls first, then add the stone to level floors if needed, use the tamper to make it firm footing before the horses come in. I was surprised at how much air the tamper got out of stone in our stalls. Got a much better base in there before putting in the mats. You can’t come close to the work the tamper does, with hand tamping, which is also hard on your body and VERY tiring.

Good luck wth your burrow removal!

[tangledweb]

I think you want to buy a Rodenator
http://www.rodenator.com/

… and lend it to me for a week when you are done with it for a bit.

[DHCarrotfeeder]

^ I had to look this up and I was not disappointed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGabXGHgCWU

I also noticed there were some DIY versions - which I personally do not endorse, but I noticed them.