What are the most common types of animals that dig up your yard?

Have you ever walked back into your yard only to find a number of arbitrarily dug holes? What made the mess? Well the answer is probably one of a multitude of digging creatures that live in your area. First let’s look at the motivation behind the digging. The motivation behind whole digging usually comes down to two things: food, or place to live. Many animals dig holes as they forage for food. Rabbits, opossums, armadillos, skunks, and some birds will dig holes hunting for roots and bugs to eat. Often a hole is not so much dug as left behind when a critter pulls up an entire plant to feed on. Most animals other than birds and rabbits are nocturnal feeders. Some animals like skunks and armadillos dig with their noses, leaving a small hole as they search for bugs and maggots.



Others like raccoons use their feet to move the earth and sod as they search for tasty tidbits in the dirt. This behavior becomes quite obvious on newly laid sod or grass with a shallow roots system. The other kind of digging is going to be a burrowing animal that digs in order to make its home. Moles, voles, chipmunk, and shrew are just few of the burrowers that can make a quick mess of your yard. These burrowing diggers will leave mounds of dirt on the surface around the opening of their burrows marking the entrance.

Identifying just what is ruining your yard can be as easy as spotting it in the open, or as difficult as looking for its scat (poop) or tracks in the dirt. Determining what is destroying your area is paramount to learning how to get rid of it. Once you have identified the trespasser, you will a plethora of traps and tricks and professionals designed to help rid you of the varmints for good.

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