Beavers and Your Home

What? Beavers and your home? How many beavers have I seen lately? Zero.

But there may be times that beavers cause damage to your property. Especially if you live out away from the city.

At one time, beavers were nearly extinct due to the fur trade. Over the years since, they’ve made a tremendous comeback. Estimates are 6 to 12 million beavers now make their homes possibly close to your home.

Probably the first thing you’ll notice if you have problems with beavers and your home will be trees chewed down. Sometimes beavers can cause plenty of valuable trees to be taken down. This can get beyond the nuisance stage fairly quickly.

If you do have beavers chewing down your trees, there are some things you can try yourself to stop them. One is to put up strong fencing around the trees you want to protect. The fencing should be about three feet high and made of strong welded wire. You’ll want to anchor the fencing and maybe put mulch around the trees to keep weeds under control.

Another tip when you have problems with beavers and your home: Paint your trees.

What? Paint the trees?

Yes. Use coarse mason’s sand and latex paint. You can choose a paint color that matches the trunk color of your tree. The beavers may not like the taste of the paint/sand combination.

You can also put up fences around the property. Beavers aren’t good climbers, so a three or four foot fence may stop them. Check your fences frequently to make sure the beavers haven’t dug under them to gain access to your trees.

There are some deterrent devices you could look into when you have problems with beavers and your home. Most of these really need to be handled by professionals, but they are possibilities.

You want to be aware of some health issues when you have problems with beavers and your home, also. They can be carriers of rabies, although they’re not a primary source. However, they can infest your swimming pool or ornamental ponds with giardia. This parasite can cause some really nasty stomach issues. There are other parasites carried by beavers, also.

If you have problems with beavers and your home, your best bet is to contact a professional. Heath’s Wildlife Service provides 24 hour emergency and long-term nuisance wildlife solutions for your home or business with a focus on customer service, mutual trust, and