Groundhogs Play Croquet in Freehold, NJ

Challenge

We were sent out on a service call for one Cowleys commercial accounts, a senior facility in Freehold, NJ. The property manager reported that a groundhog was burrowing all over his facility. We began our inspection and discovered two groundhog burrows — one in the croquet field and the other in front of a tree by the public walkway.

The main opening of a groundhog burrow is 10 to 12 inches with a mound of dirt in front. They are often near a tree base, a building foundation, or a fence. Groundhog tunnels are as deep as 5 feet and range in length from 8 to 66 feet. Their mounds and burrows damage lawns, and groundhogs will gnaw or claw trunks and stems of fruit trees and ornamental shrubs. Although groundhogs aren’t aggressive they will fight back if cornered by a dog.

Solution

We set-up two baited placement traps near the front entrance of both burrows and another one a few feet away in the croquet field. Once the groundhog was safely removed from the property we filled up the burrows and the property manager gave the maintenance team the okay to fix the croquet field.