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How to Get Rid of Groundhogs (aka Woodchucks)

a woodchuck/groundhog in the garden

Woodchucks or groundhogs can greatly damage a garden.

Image Credit:
Crestock
Written By: Catherine Boeckmann Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Do you have trouble with these burrowing pests? Here are tips for identifying and getting rid of groundhogs in your yard and garden.

What Are Groundhogs?

If every day is Groundhog Day in your garden, you’ll probably agree with those who call that gluttonous rodent their least favorite backyard creature. Even skunks get more respect. Speaking of Groundhog Day, find out the origins of that funny holiday.

The problem is that groundhogs—also known as woodchucks or whistle-pigs—are binge eaters who can wipe out your vegetable garden in a matter of minutes. They climb, they burrow, they swim, and they eat—an adult consumes about a pound to a pound-and-a-half of vegetation daily. Between spring and fall, they double their body weight.

Do Groundhogs Hibernate?

Yes, they do! Soon after they emerge from a winter’s hibernation, they mate, giving birth in mid-spring—at a time when the pickings are at their slimmest. Neat rows of seedlings must look like manna from heaven to hungry groundhogs, who sometimes perch on garden fence posts as if they are looking over the salad bar.

When hibernating, groundhogs—who are never speedy—really slow down, drawing a breath only about once every 5 minutes. Hibernation is curious behavior: Barely breathing, these mammals cool off to just a few degrees above the ambient temperature, sometimes as low as 39º to 40ºF. Their metabolic rate drops, and they sleep profoundly in their winter dens, neither eating nor drinking for 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 months, drawing all their nourishment from the body fat they accumulated during the summer. No wonder they eat so much!

groundhog in the grass

Identification

How to Identify Groundhogs

Members of the squirrel family, groundhogs are squarish, stocky animals that typically weigh between 4 and 14 pounds. They have short, strong legs, coarse, grizzled, gray-brown fur, small ears, a short, bushy tail, and curved claws. Groundhogs look a bit like runaway fur coats as they waddle back to their burrows. This critter can grow to be about 3 feet long. They have large, competent, chisel-like teeth that make them efficient but not quite endearing.

Are you wondering where groundhogs live? Do you see any deep tunnels in your yard, under your deck, or near your foundation? You may have a groundhog. Groundhogs dig burrows to live in, and the entrances are usually 10 to 12 inches wide, with the excavated soil spread around them. There are usually two or three entrances.

Groundhog Damage

What do groundhogs eat? Everything from flowers to vegetables. Favorite foods include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, lettuce, broccoli, plantain, and soybeans. Groundhogs will often devour your seedlings before they even have time to grow. Rabbits and deer eat some of the same plants, so make sure to check for burrows before concluding that you have groundhogs. If you don’t have vegetables around, groundhogs will settle for twigs, bark, bugs, and blossoms.

Groundhogs eat mostly during the early morning and afternoon, so try to see when your garden is receiving the most damage. These creatures will also gnaw and claw at fruit trees, so check your trees for any such marks.

groundhog eating clover

Control and Prevention

How to Get Rid of Groundhogs

These critters may have been attracted by your garden full of tasty plants. Encourage them to go elsewhere. 

  • Sprinkle blood meal, ground black pepper, dried blood, or talcum powder around the perimeter of your garden. You can try using hair clippings as well.
  • Puree and strain hot peppers and garlic, mix them with water and enough liquid soap to make it stick, and spray it liberally around the garden.
  • Put some harmless but strong-smelling substance just inside the burrow (such as urine-saturated clumps of kitty litter). Loosely seal the entrance so the smell stays inside the burrow.
  • Would you eat lettuce tossed with bobcat urine? Neither would a woodchuck! Fox, coyote, wolf, and bobcat urines are among the forbidding predator scents now sold as groundhog repellents.
  • Eliminate woodpiles and other places where groundhogs nest.
  • Keep undergrowth and grass cover low to deter groundhogs.
  • Groundhogs are always looking for vacant burrows. Close down their tunnel systems. Bury a 3-foot-square panel of welded wire, centered over the entrance hole, before an abandoned burrow is rediscovered.
  • Unfortunately, humane traps and relocation may be the only solution. Place traps in front of burrow entrances or in the garden. Bait them with broccoli, apple slices, fresh lettuce, carrots, or sweet corn, and work the bottom of the trap into the earth. Check the trap often after setting it to minimize stress and injury to trapped creatures. Cover the trap with an old blanket to calm the groundhog.

How to Prevent Groundhogs from Invading Your Garden

The best woodchuck deterrent is a fence. Excluding woodchucks from the garden will also keep out deer, rabbits, raccoons, and stray pets. Since groundhogs climb and also burrow, you’ll need to build a secure enclosure using 6-foot-wide woven-wire fencing. Above ground, the fence should be about 4 feet high, with the top 12 inches unattached to fence posts (i.e., floppy and facing away from the garden, so that when a groundhog tries to go over the top, its weight will flip it back). The 2 feet of fencing buried underground should form an L-shape, with 12 inches going straight down and the bottom 12 inches bent at a right angle away from the garden.

An apron of weighed-down black plastic around the garden discourages some diggers, as does an electric fence strung 4 to 6 inches off the ground about 4 to 6 inches outside the woven-wire fence.

Pay special attention to areas facing fields where woodchucks live or places where they have been digging; sometimes, extra fortification in just these spots is called for. Be sure the gate is protected, too. Fencing is not inexpensive, but it’s an investment in serious gardening.

Garden Pests

About The Author

Catherine Boeckmann

Catherine Boeckmann

Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Catherine Boeckmann is the Executive Digital Editor of Almanac.com, the digital home of The Old Farmer’s Almanac. She leads digital editorial strategy and publishing across a wide range of Almanac sub...

Read more from Catherine Boeckmann

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Comments

<span>Karmen</span> Mon, 09/14/2026 - 11:02
I’ve had a big problem trying to see if it’s a ground hog tearing up my back yard. They seem to dig a hole throwing out rocks leaving small nest of ants at the bottom along with old dried up tree roots. I’ve sprayed the holes with any killer and covered them up. Only to find new holes. I’ve dispatched 2. But there must be more. I’m going to try the powder around the tree lines where I think they’re coming from. I recently put used kitty litter around and they seem to stay away from that. Any other help would be welcomed.
<span>Janet H</span> Sun, 08/16/2026 - 08:53
I have the little darling woodchucks digging underneath the concrete slab of my garage. The even dig out the pea gravel to make their home bigger. My first thought was that the previous owners should have used larger crushed stone, as I would have, instead of little pea gravel. But it's too late to rectify that. I'm even more worried about the massive weeding I must do. Been an excellent food supply for them, but I definitely need big, towering weeds gone. Plus, now, the soft dirt will be even easier for them to dig. This article was great. Lots of temporary measures. I'm thinking of lining along the foundations with 12×12 inch paver stones. Expensive, but I don't know any other way to keep them out permanently.
<span>Karen Frye</span> Wed, 06/04/2025 - 10:17
Nice article. I have a lot of trouble with Groundhogs coming from the large park behind my house. My Doberman Pinschers patrol my garden area thinning out the Groundhogs. One last year was one of the biggest I'd seen and was rototilling a row of pole beans when Rowdy caught him, the other was a bit smaller. The damage they do is quick and tremendous.
<span>James Loomis</span> Wed, 06/04/2025 - 07:43
We have a small garden, primarily for fresh leafy greens. We have had good success in fending off the neighborhood woodchucks with wire cloches, simply formed of 2" galvanized mesh and closed at each end.
<span>Chevette Girl</span> Thu, 06/05/2025 - 11:31
I find the groundhogs that live under the storage container near my garden like all the cabbages except for kale, and they like the beans but only before it's got real leaves, so I start my beans indoors in dirt-filled toilet paper tubes and transplant them once they've got real leaves, then I leave citronella tea light candles from the dollar store around the fresh plantings. I'm going to try a hardware cloth cloche over the broccoli this year and see if they dig under it, I'm glad that works for you. Last year I tried row covers and it thought a covered dining tent was the best thing ever :D I've also found that surrounding things with potato plants keeps the bunnies and groundhogs from investigating the area but my garden's a bit small to make it work every year, plus it takes a while before the potato foliage is developed enough to be a deterrent.
<span>Susanne</span> Fri, 05/30/2025 - 22:58
Today I read that DUBBLE BUBBLE bubble gum is very yummy to groundhogs. They eat it and it gums up their insides and they die (supposedly). Bought 320 pieces of it online and while waiting for it to arrive, I sent Hubby to town to buy every available bag of that gum. When he was at the cash with all that gum, an old lady told him "That is not good for you." Hubby replied that it was for the groundhogs and raccoons and got a look from the woman as if he had lost all of his marbles. Ha ha ha ha ha ... But at least bubble gum is safe for cats, dogs, skunks, deer, little children and, as well, eco-friendly. We're hoping for the best, meaning death and destruction to the pests!
<span>Chris</span> Thu, 01/30/2025 - 14:28
.22 air rifle works wonders
<span>Christine Zagami</span> Fri, 06/30/2023 - 13:41
Please don't relocate groundhogs, or anything else. You just make them someone else's problem, they could die, and in the spring you could orphan babies, killing them too.
<span>Tl</span> Wed, 06/04/2025 - 10:57
So, you want to save all the rodents that not only destroy backyard gardens but large patches of farm field crops too. Did you know that woodchuck have 2 to 3 litters of young every year and they all become someone's problem. Do you know they undermine farm buildings foundations, causing them to collapse. These creatures must be thinned out by killing them or there won't be any food for people. I came to this article hoping to find a way to repel them from my garden and buildings because the "orphans" always seem to survive anyway. And fencing doesn't work, had one dig 20 feet into the middle of my garden from the outside. Livetraps are a joke, never had one work, ever. So, don't worry, they will always have a large population. Oh, had one injure a dog once so they aren't real sweet either.
<span>Tom Mangimelli</span> Fri, 06/21/2024 - 08:51
Who cares?