beaver dams
Whitetail Deer
I;ve got about a 15 acre beaver pond on my farm. it always been there - and it will always be there more than likely.
Its gotten bigger the last few years and its causing problems on other parts of the farm. I have to get the beaver pond level brought down to "normal" level. i blew a 10' wide 6' deep hole in it last year - and it helped - drained it completely.
My plan now is to get some logging mats and get a track hoe (mini) on the damn and really take out the majority of it. then re-route some ditches and put in new culverts -
anyone have experience in these situations?
My guess is the beaver will continue to build and plug your ditches and culverts causing you continued problems. I would skip all that work and after you have the dam removed work on the beaver removal every year with a good trapper.
Do that kind of stuff on a regular basis. Pretty easy to install pipes. We always put 90s on the pond side, you get more water flow if it runs over the top of a upright pipe that you will in a vertical pipe. Stake the inlet side down really good so it don't float up on you. And as far a getting a machine in there like excavator. I would assume with beavers around that there are plenty of trees around. If it's to boggy to drive it out there. Will have to tear out trees and use them to build a "bridge" to drive machine on. Haven't found a bog I couldn't cross with doing it. Sometimes just takes a bunch of trees. Don't have to build a whole road. Just a little longer than machine, then just leap frog the trees. Grab from behind you and put in front, and repeat. Make sure you start out with plenty of trees. Some will get lost in mud. You'll be up s*** creek if you get out there and run out of trees to set on.
I`m with Deerplotter on this one. The easiest solution is controlling the beavers....not to mention the cheapest and least labor intensive path. 15 acres isn`t huge and could easily be managed.
Blow out the dam, kill the beavers.
Keep killing any beavers that move in.
Trapping is the most efficient way to manage them.
If you trap, you will always have to trap. That’s great if you like trapping. A beaver baffle would take a days labor and less than. $1000 in materials and it would be fixed permanently with little maintenance
i put in a beaver baffle years ago - they now have 3 dams - - there is just now way to keep them completely out of this place.... its a huge swamp network that has multiple creeks... the goal is just to get the water level down by 1-2'..
I'm working on the beavers....
I read up on that beaver baffle. Looks like it will work pretty well.
olebuck- if you lower the water by more than 2’ with the baffle, they start building dams everywhere. Some places just aren’t conducive for them though.
If you rip down the dam, they'll rebuild it, If you trap them out, more are likely to move in ...
Have you considered doing some site work to limit the size of the pond the dam creates?
Depending on the terrain, you might be able to move some earth so the pond is limited to, say 5 acres instead of 15, that may be an acceptable compromise to both you and the beavers.
Careful Ace, you will be violating the EPA`s ridiculous "water act".....lol
In my experience beavers earned their moniker...."busy as a beaver". I`ve seen them bring grown men to tears. Nothing worse than dropping big coin and doing a done of labor only to find a small mammal undo it in less than a week. It can be frustrating.
Ace, We are working on draining it now - so we can do some sight work to help maintain the area a little better - we are looking at re-routing 2 ditches and it will divert water away from the beaver pond...
We have a green tree reservoir that the beavers always loved to dam up in the summer when it should be draining. Several strands of barbed wire crisscrossing in front of the culvert solved that. They seem to have an aversion to barbed wire.
I would pump a continuous feed of a medley of Taylor Swift songs over a speaker into the swamp. They will all either leave, or commit suicide. Took less than a week ;-)
Trees aren't always needed. In the Breaks a family was living off a large bed of cattails.
T-
Thats some serious, out of the box, animal control wizardry right there.....
Clemson Leveler. Easy to build yourself, cheap, works well if you don't have big current flowing into it during spring runoff. I've used them in similar situations as yours.
