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I live in the NE, suburb outside Boston. Last fall and this spring, my lawn has been dug up by some animal. It doesnt just dig a little hole to hide nuts which I've seen squirrels do before, it takes patches of grass and flips them over at the roots. Each day, I'd find many new patches. In early Spring a few months ago, 1 section of the lawn looked as if a rototiller ran thru it. The animal doesn't go deep, it just peels away the grass. I'm like WTF! What can I do??
I live in the NE, suburb outside Boston. Last fall and this spring, my lawn has been dug up by some animal. It doesnt just dig a little hole to hide nuts which I've seen squirrels do before, it takes patches of grass and flips them over at the roots. Each day, I'd find many new patches. In early Spring a few months ago, 1 section of the lawn looked as if a rototiller ran thru it. The animal doesn't go deep, it just peels away the grass. I'm like WTF! What can I do??
I'm having the same trouble as you are facing.
Every time I saw it, I feel like hell. I'm very depressed about the situation.
If you get any suggestions or advice from someone please let me know.
If you have white grubs they eat the roots of the grass. Then along comes any animal that disturbs the upper grass, even squirrels looking for long buried nuts, and instead of making a small hole, whoops! They lift a whole patch with the same effort.
You need to use an insecticide to eliminate the white grubs (which are probably Japanese beetle larvae) before the whole lawn dies off.
OP, the grubs below the surface are cutting the grass off at the roots and that makes it really easy for animals and birds to simply flip the turf over to expose the grubs and have a feast. When it happens in our location it's always crows and flickers pulling and flipping turf to get at the big fat white 1.5 inch long grubs of crane flies (aka leatherjackets). The birds work together cooperatively when they discover a hatch of grubs, they're very fast and methodical about it and the end result is as you described, looking like the grass was gone over with a rototiller.
But it's the grubs that are the real problem and they have already done the worst possible damage to the lawn before the animals/birds arrive to flip grass to get at them. So you need to determine what kinds of insect grubs you get where you live and deal with the eggs and hatching larvae before they get a chance to cut the grass off at the roots.
A .410 single-shot shotgun works wonders for most varmints, and doesn't leave a big mess. If it's squirrels and you have a wife that cares, you can trap them (sunflower seeds for bait) and relocate them at least 5 miles away.
A .410 single-shot shotgun works wonders for most varmints, and doesn't leave a big mess. If it's squirrels and you have a wife that cares, you can trap them (sunflower seeds for bait) and relocate them at least 5 miles away.
Might be a little difficult to focus in on the slugs since they are below the surface of the ground. A grenade might get more grubs than a shotgun, however a grub insecticide might be less invasive to someone’s lawn?
Might be a little difficult to focus in on the slugs since they are below the surface of the ground. A grenade might get more grubs than a shotgun, however a grub insecticide might be less invasive to someone’s lawn?
Haha!
The shotgun is for the varmint that's digging up the grubs. If his lawn is already that bad, he's got a LONG wait before he can kill the grubs with grub poison. Meanwhile, he can get rid of the thing that's digging it all up, and next year he'll be good, if he gets all the grubs killed off.
The shotgun is for the varmint that's digging up the grubs. If his lawn is already that bad, he's got a LONG wait before he can kill the grubs with grub poison. Meanwhile, he can get rid of the thing that's digging it all up, and next year he'll be good, if he gets all the grubs killed off.
Usually skunks are the alleged varmint, they love grubs and are skilled at locating and plucking them out of the ground!
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