SHOP VERMIN

[RJSakowski]

What is your take on using ammonia and sodium hypochlorite (SP?) together to produce ammonium chloride when poured down the hole ?

Chlorine gas. Nasty stuff. Unlike carbon monoxide or even cyanide, its effect on the lungs is lasting. (think WWI trenches). It would have a bad effect on plant life too. Ilat said, as a chemist, I have breathed some. One time, I was pipeting some aqua regia (hydrochloric acid and nitric acid). One of the breakdown products is chorine gas. I discharged dome of the vapor into my nistrils. Bad move. O wnet to Pozza Hut later that day and couldn't taste anything. Chlorine gas is also a product when derusting iron by electrolysis using a salt solution. A good reason ti use sodium carbonate instead.I also got whiffs of it when I was etching some steel. https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/etching-steel-using-a-2-5-watt-diode-laser.76262/ I know to recognize the odor and to back off/away.

 

[markba633csi]

"Nice marmot" said the Dude, just before being attacked by the Russian Thugs

 

[brino]

we used to digest samples in sulfuric acid on a hot plate. As the water was driven off, dense white clouds of sulfur trioxide would form and even though we were operating in a fume hood, some of the fumes would escape into the lab.

It can be produced by heating sulfur and paraffin. One of my early chemistry experiments. It took forever to air out my bedroom.

Again we had no idea of its toxicity, just that the smell was obnoxious.

So this is Freudian-slip a not a typo:

When I worked in a chem lab tears ago, we used to digest samples in sulfuric acid on a hot plate.

-brino

 

[Janderso]

Actually, I used to raise beagles. They usually have no interest in chasing by sight. They trail be scent and the good ones will dissect the the scent trail very methodically. They're fun to watch.

I love beagles. When I was a kid, we had a problem with our milk delivery. The glass jugs went missing. The milk man swore he left them.
I'm off to school, mom is watching the front porch, sure enough, a beagle that lives down the street stole the milk jugs.
He dragged the bottles to his master's house about three doors down.

Back to the thread, I would not want to tackle any cornered varmint that has teeth and claws.

 

[4ssss]

https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/200415182649-groundhog-eating-pizza-super-tease.jpg

 

[homebrewed]

The place I worked at would regularly get molding compound for encapsulating electronic modules. The material was shipped in Styrofoam coolers filled with dry ice pellets. I would take home a whole cooler filled with the pellets, dig out every mole hill I could find and stuff a good batch of dry ice in there. Plug the hole with dirt and move on to the next. Dry ice turns into a very large volume of gas (22.4 liters per mole of dry ice, about 44 grams) and it's heavier than air so will persist awhile in a tunnel. That seemed to greatly reduce the mole activity around the place. And the CO2 doesn't explode or poison you. I'm not claiming it won't asphyxiate you, but that would be hard to accomplish in this kind of situation.

When I was in high school the local hardware store sold a product to kill moles and gophers. Called "gopher gas", it was granulated calcium carbide (oh yeah!). Put a few tablespoons in a hole, add water and cover. The carbide would release acetylene gas to asphyxiate the critters. Naturally, I had the bright idea of taking it one step further and igniting the stuff. I only did that once. The explosion blew a rather large plug of dirt out of the hole, and that also is when I learned that gophers dig their tunnels with multiple escape holes. It turns out one was in a recently-harvested wheat field behind our house. I looked up and saw smoke curling up in the stubble, but I was able to stomp it out before the whole field went up. That incident is one of the star entries in the list of things I never told my parents about. There are others, but my lips are sealed

 

[MontanaLon]

The place I worked at would regularly get molding compound for encapsulating electronic modules. The material was shipped in Styrofoam coolers filled with dry ice pellets. I would take home a whole cooler filled with the pellets, dig out every mole hill I could find and stuff a good batch of dry ice in there. Plug the hole with dirt and move on to the next. Dry ice turns into a very large volume of gas (22.4 liters per mole of dry ice, about 44 grams) and it's heavier than air so will persist awhile in a tunnel. That seemed to greatly reduce the mole activity around the place. And the CO2 doesn't explode or poison you. I'm not claiming it won't asphyxiate you, but that would be hard to accomplish in this kind of situation.

When I was in high school the local hardware store sold a product to kill moles and gophers. Called "gopher gas", it was granulated calcium carbide (oh yeah!). Put a few tablespoons in a hole, add water and cover. The carbide would release acetylene gas to asphyxiate the critters. Naturally, I had the bright idea of taking it one step further and igniting the stuff. I only did that once. The explosion blew a rather large plug of dirt out of the hole, and that also is when I learned that gophers dig their tunnels with multiple escape holes. It turns out one was in a recently-harvested wheat field behind our house. I looked up and saw smoke curling up in the stubble, but I was able to stomp it out before the whole field went up. That incident is one of the star entries in the list of things I never told my parents about. There are others, but my lips are sealed

When I worked at the airport we used dry ice on the food service and had a pretty endless supply. Much fun was had with it.

When I shot competitively we used calcium carbide in our miners torches to blacken our sights. It came in a little quart paint can and would last for a long time. This lead to many adventures with flames. Usual vehicle was a trash bag. A few rocks of carbide and a cup of water would fill the trash bag with acetylene. But the fun off that wears off rapidly.

 

[Aaron_W]

So that's what they were bred for ? I know some folks who might like to give their pets an opportunity to know fear.

Many small dogs are good for pests. Cats have this reputation for being great anti-rodent devices, but our beagle is a much better mouser than our cat is.
He will also dig, we had ground squirrels where we lived before. We put the dog out back on a run, 30 minutes later he had turned the backyard into a WW1 diorama, he was a good 3 foot down trying to dig out a squirrel, all you could see was the tip of his tail and flying dirt. Very smart dog, perhaps too smart.

Not sure how big a ground hog is, but dachshunds are surprisingly tenacious watch dogs. My dad had a friend with a small pack of dachshunds, they had a patrol route around the house where they had worn a trail through the grass down to the dirt. Nothing came onto that property without their permission. They are notorious piddlers though, like perpetual puppies who will pee whenever they get excited, which is all the time.

 

[homebrewed]

I had a "funny" experience regarding a couple of dachshunds we (my wife and I) encountered on the beach. The owner + dogs were walking one direction and we were walking the other. The dogs ran up to me and started chewing on my ankles! I was strongly tempted to stomp on one but the owner was right there, and my wife was laughing hysterically at the bemused expression on my face. Assaulted by weener dogs....

 

[MontanaLon]

The propane through the garden hose with a model rocket igniter in the burrow works too. But I wouldn't do it under a slab as it can be destructive if you do it right.

And once upon a time I saw a Vactor truck used to extract prairie dogs from their burrows. Not sure how it would work on groundhogs but it sure worked for the prairie dogs.