Modified Mower Makes It Easy To Gas Ground Squirrels

Modified Mower Makes It Easy To Gas Ground Squirrels FARM HOME Lawn Mowers 31h 38 After losing his winter lettuce crop to ground squirrels Jeff Hoard got serious about controlling them The off-the-grid inventor made quick modifications to a walk-behind mower Now it serves double duty as a ground squirrel gasser “They would come into the garden and dig up seeds or clip seedlings ” says Hoard “We grow lettuce under hoops with plastic over it all winter I throw carpet scraps over it when it gets down below freezing The ground squirrels got in and ate it all ” This past summer Hoard decided to try gassing them He mounted a pipe flange over the muffler exhaust of the old mower “I wanted the mower to work the way it always had ” says Hoard “The flange didn’t interfere but it let me channel the exhaust into the ground squirrel tunnels ” He first attached a 3-ft length of copper pipe to the flange and a length of flexible hose to the pipe end The copper pipe dissipated the exhaust heat which otherwise would have melted the hose “I insert the hose end into the tunnel and step down the dirt around it to seal the exhaust in ” explains Hoard “The mower puts out enough exhaust pressure that it blasts any back fill out of the way; yet it doesn’t seem to affect the engine any ” Hoard doesn’t expect any problems with ground squirrels this winter This past fall he treated tunnels within a 300-ft radius of his winter garden bed “I don’t see any running around ” he says “It seems to have cleaned them out ” Hoard shares his “creative scrounging” ideas and projects on his Hillbilly Heaven CD available at his website Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Hoard Manufacturing HC 61 Box 6108 Austin Nevada 89310 hmranch@wildblue net; www hmranch-hoardmfg com

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