I found this hole in my yard

[Penpal]

Woodchuck or rabbit.

 

[Tstraub]

Woodchuck or rabbit.

Aren’t rabbit holes generally filled with hair? Maybe it’s a seasonal thing but every rabbit hole seen was full of hair. Of course I only knew they were rabbit holes because they were also full of bunnies.

 

[Possumm]

While mowing the lawn I found a hole in the yard. Im hoping someone here might know what dug it and if it’s any threat to my chickens. I live on a 2 acre lot in Eastern Indiana, USA. This hole is located about 10 feet from a bean field and 40 feet from my chicken coop. The hole is about 4 inches at the opening and tapers down to 2-3 inches before taking a sharp turn and becoming a tunnel around a foot deep. There is no dirt mounded up. I haven’t noticed any scat, hair or anything else that might be related in the area. Just this almost perfectly round clean hole.

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In Florida panhandle, we had these and they were rats. They got into our pen and ate thru our plastic garbage cans to get at the feed

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Woodchuck.

 

[Tstraub]

In Florida panhandle, we had these and they were rats. They got into our pen and ate thru our plastic garbage cans to get at the feed

Rat was my father in law’s guess too. He did a lot of hunting and trapping in his younger years so he does have a good amount of local knowledge of these sorts of things. At any rate I had a live trap set for 3 days and didn’t catch anything. Then I went ahead and filled the hole in and nothing has cleared it back out so I guess whatever dug it had already moved out.

 

[Love Donkeys]

I did set a live trap last night baited with an old catfish filet I had in the freezer since 2020. No takers. The hole measures real close to 4 inches at the opening but funnels down pretty quickly and is probably closer to 3 inches or a bit smaller. The tape went in 16 inches before it hit bottom.

It’s hard to tell but I believe I see a possible side tunnel around 8 inches deep. I did walk around looking for a possible second entrance but couldn’t find one. There is a bean field about 10 feet away that has been recently plowed so it’s possible that there was a second entrance out there.

This is in an area that gets mowed regularly so I would think if it were bees or hornets I would have scared them out and saw them while mowing.
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To me it looked like a Ground Squirrels burrow. There should be another hole approximately 20 feet away from the first. You might see a small pathway the Squirrels make going between the holes....

The easiest way to find the other hole is to put leaves in the hole and start a small fire. When the leaves start to smoke put a cover over the hole and watch for smoke to come out of the escape hole. It won't hurt the Ground Squirrels they will scamper out of the escape hole long before the smoke gets to it....

 

[MamaPoult]

Little Porcupine. One made our yard look like a golf course

 

[Love Donkeys]

Woodchuck.

Woodchuck holes are large and they usually burrow into hillsides. They will pile the excavated dirt in a half circle on the upper edge of the burrow to deflect rain water coming down the hill...

Those miserable rodents made Swiss Cheese of our hay fields when our farm was in Upstate NY. Our "brilliant" son and his buddy decided to burn out a Woodchuck. They poured 5 gallons of gas down the hole and used Gas soaked bailing twine as a wick. Then the two fools sat down on the grass to watch! The burrow exploded, the two idiots were pelted with dirt and stones. I believe the Woodchuck was watching and laughing at the show...

 

[wrathsfarm]