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Varmint problem

I've got chipmunks. Both the front and backyard. I tried flooding the suckers and stuck a hose down the uppermost hole and just let it run until I saw water trickling out through the cracks and weep holes in the retaining wall. Didn't do a thing. I imagine their little "rooms" are dug in such a way that they won't fill up with water for obvious reasons. I thought that maybe the water would back up eventually and make it's way into their "rooms". They're still around. I could use a Have-A-Heart trap but with my luck I'll catch nothing, get tired of checking and finding nothing, leave the trap set up anyway but won't check it and then will find one dead in the trap. I have a dog so I don't want to put poison out there.
 
MntnMan62 said:
I've got chipmunks. Both the front and backyard. I tried flooding the suckers and stuck a hose down the uppermost hole and just let it run until I saw water trickling out through the cracks and weep holes in the retaining wall. Didn't do a thing. I imagine their little "rooms" are dug in such a way that they won't fill up with water for obvious reasons. I thought that maybe the water would back up eventually and make it's way into their "rooms". They're still around. I could use a Have-A-Heart trap but with my luck I'll catch nothing, get tired of checking and finding nothing, leave the trap set up anyway but won't check it and then will find one dead in the trap. I have a dog so I don't want to put poison out there.
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I tried the have-a-hart trap last night and it caught a big old nothing. The trap closed but nothing’s inside it. I did however do more investigation and found that what I thought was a well sealed wall was NOT. The ground squirrels that are stealing my chickens eggs out in the back 40 have set up a false wall (MY foam barrier) behind my water heater making it look like all is well when they have in fact made a huge entry and dug a hole under the foundation and my shower. I want SO bad to use explosives or some other ‘take no prisoners” approach but with a gas line, water lines and my water heater all in that little 2x2 area I think a more surgical approach is needed. I will continue to attempt to “have-a-hart” while I await the sonic strobe light devices that i will be used to drive the burrowing buggers from the shower pan area...then, once vacated I will pump so much expanding foam into the empty space any critter that hasn’t left will be forever encapsulated in a foamy tomb. And if that doesn’t work I’ll move.
 
Spider said:
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See how the dogs knew to stay out of the blast zone. That’s kind of what my front yard looked like only nothing on top was very disturbed, it just lifted and had a lot of dust. When we were doing the propane thing for the park & rec it was nothing like that, just streaks of raised dirt like lightning underground, with occasional flying dirt.
 
I found a company that comes and basically puts exhaust in the holes from a small engine. I think I could rig that up. They guarantee it. No more gophers within a month or they come back out and do it again for free. Price is pretty steep though at $200 but I think I might give it a go
 
Probably need to plug up all the other hole openings to ensure the tunnels get chock full of exhausty goodness. Otherwise, you might just be pumping a short distance to the next hole.
 
CBLindsay said:
I tried the have-a-hart trap last night and it caught a big old nothing. The trap closed but nothing’s inside it. I did however do more investigation and found that what I thought was a well sealed wall was NOT. The ground squirrels that are stealing my chickens eggs out in the back 40 have set up a false wall (MY foam barrier) behind my water heater making it look like all is well when they have in fact made a huge entry and dug a hole under the foundation and my shower. I want SO bad to use explosives or some other ‘take no prisoners” approach but with a gas line, water lines and my water heater all in that little 2x2 area I think a more surgical approach is needed. I will continue to attempt to “have-a-hart” while I await the sonic strobe light devices that i will be used to drive the burrowing buggers from the shower pan area...then, once vacated I will pump so much expanding foam into the empty space any critter that hasn’t left will be forever encapsulated in a foamy tomb. And if that doesn’t work I’ll move.
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I have thought about smoking them out. Get something burning, and force the smoke down into their burrow until I see it come out the other openings. The challenge is how to to get the smoke in there.
 
MntnMan62 said:
I have thought about smoking them out. Get something burning, and force the smoke down into their burrow until I see it come out the other openings. The challenge is how to to get the smoke in there.
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I used those sulfur gopher gassers with no luck, they are essentially smoke bombs made of sulfur gas. I used a paint can with sand in the bottom as the burn box, shoved a hose through a hole in the lid and put the other end through a little hole in the wall then used duct tape to seal all known openings. To keep the van from getting too hot and to ensure I wasn’t getting any air leakage I floated the can in a bucket of water and floated water around the seal. By burning 2 of the gopher gassers I was able to produce enough thick smoke it became clear I had an unexpected opening somewhere but I couldn’t at that time locate the source.
 
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