Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? nuisance animals

Hello,

We just purchase a property with a 1 acre pond that I recently had repaired because of it leaking. The leaks were caused by a number of things. The dam had a large amount of trees; it was also heavily damaged by muskrats and crayfish holes. While repairing the pond my pond guy found the den and was able to remove the muskrats. He was also able to repair the crayfish holes. My question is how can I prevent the muskrat’s returning and what should I do about the crayfish. My pond guy said when I find a crayfish hole on the dam that I should pour a little seven (pesticide I think) and push a rock into the hole and cover it over. As for the muskrats he gave me a name of a local trapper but he can only trap during certain season. Any suggestions?

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Hey backld; welcome to the pond show, my man! You landed in the right hole place.
I'm fighting a similar issue right now. The second page has some answers.
(edit: nice work cleanin' house)

Howdy, backld.

Keeping tall grass & other muskrat favorite eats like cattails off the edge of the pond should help keep them from wanting to move back into your banks. With the edges all cleaned up, you've got a good starting point.

Trapping itself is not too difficult and the proper sized traps are available in the $5 - $10 range. If you live on the property, checking your trapline once a day as required by ODNR should be fairly simple. If this is an option for you, we can help steer you to the necessary resources here & elsewhere in time to be ready for Ohio's muskrat trapping season this coming Winter.

Ohio may be different, but most states allow traping 'Nuisance" animals at any time. The animals just can not be used for anything other than fertilizer and of course pelts can not be kept.


Great clean-up!

Start here: http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/Home/fishing/pond/animals/tabid/6215/Default.aspx

It says the best way to control them is to trap during the state's trapping season, but I would bet all is really required is to call your local dnr office and let them know you are removing them due to pond bank damage. That's the way it is in Missouri (where I live) and most states in the midwest.

Wow! What a great redo of the pond...

Another option to consider is to bury chainlink fencing along your dam, to prevent them from burrowing past it. Also, placing rocks along the dam can help make it less desirable to rats.

A healthy bass/catfish population should help to reduce the crayfish population and therefore mitigate the damage they may do.

Welcome aboard.

Thanks for all of the answers. I'm thinking of doing this around my pond. http://www.rockchuckers.com/

Welcome, backld. Lots of sound advice has already been offered. I have a 1.5 acre pond with a max depth of about 20 feet that was drained halfway down by muskrats. Another option to trapping them is to just use poison. So far, I've found that high speed lead projectiles induce a nearly instant case of fatal lead poisoning that seems to prevent the afflicted rat from getting back into the game.

Once I find the dam holes and get them repaired, I am planning on lining the face of my dam with riprap so the rats can't burrow there anymore. The chain link fencing is a great idea, too, but the riprap will also provide something interesting for the LMB in the pond.

Good luck and let us know what you decide to do.

I thought that another option is to have a very gentle slope on the dam. I think that muskrats prefer a steep bank to burrow in. Combined with Winter trapping, this has worked for me. The crayfish around here burrow straight down on shore (looks like a mini volcano), but have not caused me any problems. The population in the pond is low, maybe due to fish and herons? I also installed a rat guard on the 15" overflow pipe, mostly to discourage the beavers. No beavers yet, but I'll know better in a year how this is working. I do have a bunch of teeth marks through the paint on the guard, so something was not happy with the new bars covering the pipe.

Got any pics of your rat guard? I'm curious to see what exactly it is.

I bought the band type rat guard from AgrDrain (see at link below). I considered building one, but intalling this one was a snap. The in-pipe ones might be better in some applications, but I did not want to impede any of the flow in my pipe.

http://www.agridrain.com/pipeproduct.asp?prodtype=107

Nifty. Is the plastic rigid? I assume it would have to be or they'd just push through it if they were so inclined.

It's steel (painted red)

Better still!

Article in PondBoss mag this month about this...just sayin...