If you own a garden or tend to a yard, you may have experience with nuisance pests like groundhogs and squirrels. Below is a guide to keeping pests like these from undoing all your backyard hard work.
Indications You Need Pest Control
Groundhogs and squirrels in your yard can be a cause of serious distress. Gardeners and farmers especially face a threat of their green-leaved plants and crops being chewed up by these animals.
Here are five ways to tell if your garden is infested by squirrels and groundhogs:
- Bite marks and underground holes that store food
- Gnawed fruit trees and semi-bitten crops
- Siding that indicates scent marking: a behavior animals display to mark their territory
- Munched-on hoses in motor vehicles and underground power cables leading to power outages
- If your bird food starts to disappear quickly, it is safe to assume that squirrels in your garden are feeding on it
Got wildlife issues? Call Modern today at 1-800-323-7378!
How to Prevent an Infestation
Preventing squirrels and groundhogs from infesting your yard or garden is crucial to safeguarding your property. Without pest control, these animals can cause expensive or irreparable damage. Here are a few prevention methods:
Fencing
A fence made out of wood or iron can help. It’s important that the fence not having any openings larger than two inches between metal wiring or wood planks. Sinking the fence two feet deep into the ground, and giving it a slight curve to make it harder to climb, can also make the fence more effective.
Planting New Food Sources
Introducing new sources of food may drive squirrels and groundhogs to those sources instead of munching up the plants in your yard.
These include cereals, bird seeds, sunflower seeds, cheese, and eggs for squirrels. Groundhogs enjoy clover, basil, beet greens, chrysanthemum, parsley, and green beans.
Keep Your Yard Neat and Clean
Most squirrels and groundhogs will eat the plants and crops in your garden if they can detect the scent of vegetation.
It is important to pick fruits and vegetables as soon as they ripen instead of delaying the process. If you notice any dropped vegetation that has begun to rot, quickly rake it up to mask the scent.
Since squirrels and groundhogs are mainly herbivores, they can pick up the odor of food scraps in your trashcan. Make sure trashcans are tightly sealed to keep out rodents and other wildlife.
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What to Do Once Wildlife Has Invaded
While there are ways to prevent squirrels and groundhogs from infesting your yard, what do you when it’s too late, and they’ve taken over your property?
These pests can be a big nuisance. They burrow underground when they sense predators and resurface to feed on vegetation on the ground when no one’s around. Even if you see them moving in and out of their burrows, they will be too quick to catch. Squirrels and groundhogs can also cause damage by chewing the root systems of trees and shrubs. In case of an infestation, here’s what you can do:
Eliminate Harborage Areas
Since squirrels and groundhogs dig underneath homes near thick bushes and tall grass, it is important to clean up any leftover piles of leaves, wood, or vegetation. Maintain your yard by mowing it often and cutting the grass short.
Trimming back shrubs and bushes will ensure that the leaves are not too thick or sweeping the ground’s surface.
By filling in pre-existing holes in your garden, squirrels and groundhogs will be less attracted to nest in them. While you’re at it, ensure that your soil is moderately moist- most pests are attracted to drier dirt.
Professional Pest Control
Groundhogs and squirrels are attracted to your garden due to vegetation, crops, and plants. The best way to exclude them from your yard is to contact Modern Pest. Our pest control professionals will analyze your specific issue and customize a plan to alleviate it.
The Modern Solution
Whether you’re dealing with an invasion of squirrels, groundhogs, or something else, these critters can ruin your property and spread serious diseases. Wildlife Control Services from Modern Pest focus on the humane management of nuisance wildlife. If not handled properly, wildlife issues can escalate quickly and become very difficult and costly to manage. Call Modern today at 1-800-323-7378 to see how we can help.