Another quick inexpensive way yo make a silencer is with a baby bottle nipple. You can buy them anywhere and are really cheap. Just stretch the nipple over the barrell of the gun and start Shooting. We’ve done this before just to see if it worked, it did, and a few sqirrels died. Give it a shot, you will have to change nipples every few shots, but like i said, its cheap.
Yes, the price has been high. Once the alfalfa grew past a certain height the enemy could move unseen with impunity. I could no longer use the tractor exhaust contraption without ruining my farmers’ alfalfa, I could no longer snipe them because they were unseen… watching me.
At long last the farmer mowed. I have seen heavy action since.
The pups are stupid, and easily disposed of. They see you, but figure if you are fifty or a hundred yards away, you can’t hurt them. BLAM! I’ve sent countless to Valhalla in this fashion. Yes, I know they are only children, but they are tommorrows enemy, and I do what I must, though it takes a terrible toll.
Alas, the veterans among them are quite savvy. If I see them I usually only have split second to fire before they dive into their foxholes. When this occurs I gas the hole for an hour or so with the tractor. They must sense the gas, because occasionaly they make a break for it. I know leave one obvious exit uncovered, and set myself in a position to cover it.
I’ve spent countless hours in hellish conditions (in the back of my pickup truck reading a book and drinking beer,) waiting for these horrible creatures to sound the all-clear. When they come out of their holes I can get only one before they retreat, then I must wait another half-hour or more, or change my location.
Groundhog activity HAS decreased, but it is taking a lot of effort. Every groundhog that I kill now decreases next years breeding population, and I feel that I am slowly, singlehandedly (with the help of the SDMBers,) getting the upper hand.
My replies have been shorter, because a lot of the suggestions have been covered before.
The red lye sounds like a horrible death, and I can’t wait to try it, if I can find the stuff. They had no idea what I was talking about at Agway, but we’ll see.
…Waiting for VG day.
-Scylla, Al, or whoever I’ve become.
Scylla AKA AL or whoever
Is there a groundhog season in your state? In Iowa it ends in september. Still haven’t figured out why.
Groundhog makes a suitable coyote bait. Just in case you want to take your obsession to the next level.
Okay, well, if it helps, according to my sources, they keep red lye in with detergents and such, since it’s a soap, and my grandfather says he’s used it recently on his farm, so here’s hoping.
I absolutely love the Skeet Shooting option, and think Al should try it
but I’d also like for Scylla or Al to try to copy what bill Murray did in Caddyshack, everyone remember the “freeze Gopher” scene?
he should grab a 25-06 (flat shooting, small, fast bullet) big-ass scope, and a 60watt Halogen flashlight, and dress all up in camo and go out… that’s what I do for Squirrels in Minnesota… anyhow, best of luck
another thought, at the local McDonalds my friends and I like to throw Alka Seltzer at the endless supply of Seagulls and watch them fall from the sky… quite sadistic, yes, funny, hilarious
maybe you could find a way to throw alkaseltzer down they little burrows and get the little Nazi McNasties with an inside job?
OK, I got this from my own little messed up head… from the layout of the land and all, I gather that there are some hills around the fields (hills being natural, or roofs, or anything elevated) maybe you could put snipers up on the roofs, and wait a bit until all of the little Nazi McNasties have started moving around, and get a silent 123 count going, and on 3, everyone take a Snipe at them… (make sure of course, there is no cross-shooting, and that everyone shoots pretty much on 3)… but the only problem I have found it the relative lack of speech one must use, so hand gestures, or walk-abouts must be used.
Maybe there is a way to get the electric netting everyone was talking about before… maybe get a chain-link fence, but hook it up to voltage? maybe a Yacht Battery?
ah, I have recently seen in a Hunting Magazine a Picture of a Night-vision goggle that is as big as your thumb, with 2.5X vision for under $300 I got the thinking, you know, if they are under that much for a recticle, I wonder how much it would be for a Night-Vision Scope?
I’ve gotta come up with an outrageous idea instead of only real ones…
(P.S. the “freeze Gopher” Idea was REAL, not a joke!!!)
Hey Scylla,
I wanted to post to you and say, “thanks, man”. I discovered this forum due to this thread being in threadspotting. I used to visit the Strait Dope to read Cecils colums, and Nazi Groundhogs turned me on to the message boards. Months later, I even registered. ( OK, so I was slow on that)
Anyhow, about the OP, here in northern Ohio we are having what seems to be a record year for the critters. I don’t have a problem with them where I’m at, but they are a nusance on my Dad’s property. He’s been through many of the previously posted tactics, and the best solution so far is to simply plink them off when ya see em. I believe the head count is over 50 so far this year.
I also used to have a dog, who was no bigger than they were, who had a knack for taking them out. It was something to see. I sure miss that dog, but old age got to him.
Take care.
One that I haven’t seen posted… I don’t know if this works for groundhogs, but I’ve found it to work for other rodents.
If where you live tends to be windy, bury a bunch of bottles in the openings of their burrows so that the wind blows across the openings of the bottles. The sound will resonate through their burrows and drive them crazy to the point that they leave.
It’s not mass slaughter, but hey.
I could definately see a large amount of quick-dry cement administered by a pressure pump as a solution to the problem…Cement in winter, dig up in early spring. Yes, the field would be unusable, and thoroughly dug up for a bit. But this is war, man! I’m picturing you, standing in front of a Pompei-like cement sculpture with hundreds of NGH corpses forever encased, posing for local media…
You could probably even sell the thing to fancy art galleries. After all, if flies devouring a pig head is art, cemented ground hogs should qualify just as easily (but that’s a completely different thread).
Maybe that’s because someone did post it. I can’t believe someone hasn’t read the thread and then decreed something to be missing. See pages 2 and 3.
Since the formatting got broken in the Great Migration, here is the Nando Times story: Prayer, then a dream, inspired giant vacuum to humanely suck up prairie dogs.
I can picture it now: a bunch of groundhogs, encased in grey cement, some fleeing in terror, some sleeping peacefully in their cute little evil nazi groundhog beds, others eating dinner. hehe
Since this thread is taking away from my social life, I thought I’d mention another hairbrained scheme, just for kicks, that’s similar to this non-hairbrained scheme.
Take two chemicals that are explosively reactive (a la “Die Hard With A Vengence”). Take Chem #1 and encircle all the holes with it. Then, place Chem #2 inside the tunnels, either at the mouth or, via a large needle, in the caverns. When the groundhog walks through the tunnel, it gets Chem #2 on its feet. Should it decide to exit via any of the encircled holes, a large explosion occurs and you can notch up another kill.
Of course, it could work in reverse as well, but then the explosions would be underground…
But if you’re not worried about explosively rotatillering the grounds, you could just do random injections of both chemical throughout the tunnel maze.
Just a side note, but Scylla, have you sold the movie rights yet?
First, I want to thank you for sharing your problem, i found it pretty amusing. Second, as far as the groundhogs, i offer one bit of advice… RUN!!! Those suckers sound vicious. I’ve never actually seen one of those things up close, and after the way you talk about them i’m not sure i want to. By the way… do you know what an elephant gun is??? You might want to try one of those.
Nazi Whistle Pigs, ya just gotta love that name. Kinda rolls off of the tongue real sweet doesn’t it? I think it’s because of the close juxtaposition of the words, “Nazi” and “Pig.” It has a special sorta resonance to it, no? I just can’t believe that no one has come up with any of these suggestions before me. Now, let’s get down to business.
Solution one:
You say these are Nazi Ground Hogs, right? The fix is really quite is simple. Nazis are famous for their love of formation marching. A little reconnaissance and some high rate automatic weapons are just the ticket for you. Reconnoiter carefully in order to ascertain their parade schedule. Have your buddies set up some emplacements at the correct angles to provide an enfillade of crossfire. When they’re tightly grouped, hit them hard and heavy. They won’t be moving very fast in parade dress with their little hobnailed jackboots on. It should be easy picking’s as far as I can see. You may even be able to cap off a few sniper rounds into the reviewing stands to nail their fearless leader. You know, the one that beats up your dog.
Solution Two:
Nazis are nothing if not famous for their love of paperwork. Set up a listening post in order to intercept some of their signal traffic. Since they’re probably still using Enigma, you should finally be able to determine the correct location of their headquarters from the intercepts. Send them an incendiary letter bomb disguised as a Publisher’s Clearing House Award notification. This will serve two purposes. First, you will effect a decapitating strike against their top brass. Second, the amassed files should burn quite nicely, thus flushing out any remaining troops from their underground bunkers. These survivors will be dazed and provide the aforementioned machine gun nests with a veritable banquet of soft targets. It just doesn’t get any easier than this.
Solution Three:
Though less workable, if you get too many complaints from the duck squeezing PETA monitors, you may wish to carry out a leafleting campaign. The trouble with this method is that the Ground Hog has already been shown to be notoriously near sighted. The added cost of all the tiny spectacles you would need to provide for them to actually be able to read your propaganda would most likely be prohibitive. Use this only as a last resort.
And finally:
There have been numerous but incorrectly identified references to the use of infra-sound. This signal usually consists of a low frequency sine wave, below the threshold of human hearing. It is produced by drivers constructed from subsonic horns invented by the famous Mister Klipsch. It is well documented that a body of a given size responds to what is known as a “Resonant Frequency.” The human body resonates at around six to seven hertz (cycles per second), for instance. Prolonged exposure to this sort of acoustic waveform establishes sympathetic vibrations within the body in question. The subject then literally vibrates itself apart, with some organs turning into jelly. The varying size of your adult and juvenile rodent population would require a bandwidth scanning oscillator and might be defeated if the Ground Hogs got wise and set up negative phased sound canceling defense systems. A counter measure against this defense might include agile frequency hopping emission control systems, but by that time the project costs would have skyrocketed out of all control.
Turnabout is fair play, since the Nazis were so fond of gassing people, the exhaust delivery system sounds like the most reliable method. High velocity “lead poisoning” is also strongly indicated, if only for the sense of satisfaction it provides for the combatant.
Good luck and keep us posted with your results.
It looks like someone found the correct answer for getting rid of hole digging rodents. And the answer is
…
the Black Death.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/plague000905.html
Well a few people in this thread mentioned germ warfare, but I don’t think anyone specifically mentioned the Bubonic Plague.
hey! I’m new to this thread…anyone want to summarize what’s been said so far?
:ducks:
I like Wolfman’s Idea, but I think a better Idea would be one of my own design, that would be getting yourself some FLARES, these emit sparks up to 2 feet out, now you need to find yourself some GREEN leaves, and Pine Boughs, put the down the holes, and stick a flair in the middle, and start up the flares, should create an industrial strength smoke bomb…
OR, make yourself some AMMONIA and BLEACH, this will make MUSTARD gas, but it won’t sink into the low-lands like the REAL stuff… works nicely…
Later, Peace Out
(Im REALLY a peaceful guy, HONEST!!!)
IF you combine amonia and bleach; please do not stand downwind.