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Removing Beaver Dams

Dirtman2007

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Well today I was asked if I wanted to remove a beaver dam that is daming up a creek up upstream from where I'm working.

I was told the dam is about 5' tall, 5' wide, and is backing up about 3 acres of water which is killing all the trees and making a flipping mess. We need the water to fill up a lake up we just finished up working on. Seems like a good way to do so.

I was pondering on how to bust the dam though. It's a long way through the woods and I would have to go stump jumping with the mini excavator to get back there and would absolutly hate to get bogged down and stuck in the middle of the swamp.

My next option is letting one of the neighbors blow it up with the little beaver dam bombs he makes.

The fellow I'm working for would reather me go in and break it with the mini, But I sure would like to see it get blown up! The fellow works for the rock quarry and is very good with blowing things up from what I'm told.

any other suggestions besides getting down and dirt by removing it by hand?
 
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dirt digger

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those beaver dams are a lot stronger then you might think...with a lot larger logs/trees then you might imagine are in there....your mini-ex might take a good while to get it done...i vote for dynamite
 

Dirtman2007

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roddyo

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Dynamite the Beaver Dams

The bad thing about digging out beaver dams is you pile all the mud and brush right where they want to rebuild the dam. It makes it ALOT eaiser on them rebuilding the thing. That's why I like Dynamite, it scatters the dam everywhere. Don't kid yourself, they are going to rebuild it. The Dynamite just makes it harder on them. If it is a good size dam get a pry bar about 5 feet long and punch a hole down as far as you can drive it. This will get your Dynamite down in the mud and you can blow the hxll out of it this way. Make sure about EVERY 6 INCHES to wallow the hole out before going any deeper with the bar. This is so your bar don't get stuck in the mud and you have to leave it.
 
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Deere9670

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ahh beaver problem eh, well like he said, you can rip it out, but it will be built up in a day or so depending on how many beavers! Heres the illegal way to handle it: take some of the damn out, just enough to let some water through, then sit up stream of it and wait for the beavers to feel the water level go down, then they will swim out to fix it, then thats when mr. winchester comes into play. Be patient, and more will keep coming! As for the legel way, look into a trapper, but just removing the damn will onley let water flow for a couple days!
 

Dirtman2007

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ahh beaver problem eh, well like he said, you can rip it out, but it will be built up in a day or so depending on how many beavers! Heres the illegal way to handle it: take some of the damn out, just enough to let some water through, then sit up stream of it and wait for the beavers to feel the water level go down, then they will swim out to fix it, then thats when mr. winchester comes into play. Be patient, and more will keep coming! As for the legel way, look into a trapper, but just removing the damn will onley let water flow for a couple days!

He said over the last few years he's shot 20 of them. Dern things just keep comming back. Mr pipe bomb needs to be dropped down in their little hut. Man they are killing acres and acres of good timbers. The mostqitos are horrible too!

They've looked into trapping them too, $100 for the fellow to come out and $80.00 fot every one removed.
 

roddyo

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Killing the Little Bxstxrds

He's right about shooting them when you dig the dam out. The water level protects the entrance to their house, when it starts dropping someone is going to come investigate. If you keep shooting them I don't Know if more will come or not. I always trap them out before I dig the dam out. That way, Problems Solved.:usa
 

stumpjumper83

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Wow i guess fur prices really are down. It used to be that they would be pounding on doors for you to give them permission to trap. Yeah tearing it out with an excavator, be carefull. Get the excavator stuck in the muck tearing it out and go home for the evening with the machine stuck... watch out. Them little buggers might use the minni as part of the new dam, or build the new dam just bellow the stuck mini.... That would be funny....
 

HeyUvaVT

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we tried using our Tak TB175 to take out a damn smaller than the one you are describing...and they had it rebuilt in about 3 days...the next time we blew it sky high...and they rebuilt it in about a month...either way you do it chris....someone has to kill them...all of them...they MUST ALLLLL DIIEEEEEEEE!!!!

okay...okay...im good.....just a little jumpy about the beavers....kinda like bill murray with the ground hogs in Caddy Shack..... :)
 

OneWelder

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Old Timer down the street always said you had to get rid of beavers before you get rid of the dam. He had two methods Trapping - less effective or the other method.
This was years ago before pollution laws & thoughts. He would take a few empty gallon bleach bottles and put roughly a cup of high detergent oil in each. He would then dist. upstream. By tossing out in water with no cap on the bottles would bob up and down and gradually release oil until they sank. He said beavers are not hurt , but it bothers there skin and will move out within a week or two.
He also said it does not take many, one or two in a small pond
 

PSDF350

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Like has been said the only way to get rid of the dam, is to first get rid of the beaver. Once the beaver are gone it is just a simple matter of getting the water to flow, once flowing, the hydrualics of the water will take care of the rest. One thing about beaver dams is they are not water tight they take alot of work to keep them working. So get rid of the beaver first. But remember next spring when upstreams young move out to find new homes that spot just might appel to them.
 

dirt digger

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if you want me to take a trip down there i can....up here i have pretty good luck scaring the beaver away from me...i'm sure it would be the same down south:rolleyes:
 

tonka

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if you want me to take a trip down there i can....up here i have pretty good luck scaring the beaver away from me...i'm sure it would be the same down south:rolleyes:
:rolleyes:please enlighten us on your methods:cool2
 

Dirtman2007

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:rolleyes:please enlighten us on your methods:cool2

We might not want to know! LOL

Here's what we have. I'll have to clear a path in with the mini excavator to get back there. Probably 200' back in the woods, all good ground until I get to the dam then it gets ify. The beaver dam is bigger than I thought, looks to be atleast 100+' long, 3'-4' wide and 5' tall. mostly bulit out of stick ranging from 1-2" in diameter.

Did not want to venture out there too far as I had already had the **** scared out of me with all the snakes that were everywhere:eek:

Then I heard somthing rather large moving around in the tall weeds so I snapped three pictures a got the hell out of the swamp!


Here is the lower pond, there are 2 more upstream.


I'm thinking that busting one end with the mini would be the best bet. then when the water darins down he should be able to see the beavers and knock them off one at the time. Maybe I can get him to make one pipe bomb to blow up the other end, sound like too much fun not too!
 

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Orchard Ex

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:rolleyes:please enlighten us on your methods:cool2

I bet that it involves offering to buy 'em a beer,
then a cool line like "Your eyes are like a pool of 30wt, shining in the moonlight after it leaked out of the final drive of my.... wait, where ya going!? OK, I'll wait here for ya... ":eek:

Side story: a friend of mine works at Natural Resources and had the same type of beaver dam problems. After a bunch of emails between some guys on what to do, the Big Brother software kicked in on the email system and they got reprimands for "improper use of the email system". Took a few phone calls to explain that they were really talking about beavers, the animals.
 

dirt digger

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I bet that it involves offering to buy 'em a beer,
then a cool line like "Your eyes are like a pool of 30wt, shining in the moonlight after it leaked out of the final drive of my.... wait, where ya going!? OK, I'll wait here for ya... ":eek:

haha yea something like that...seems the girls i get attracted to know nothing about getting your hands dirty
 

RocksnRoses

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I find this thread quite interesting, because obviously we don't have beavers and I know nothing about what they do, but here in South Australia at the moment we would kill to have a dam full of water like that. If you have not heard, the River Murray, which is Australia's largest river, has been over allocated with irrigation for years and because of a run of dry seasons, a fair part of the country, including our state, is running out of water, so if you have some to spare, send it down here, but you can keep the snakes!

Rn'R.
 

Wolf

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Chris:

I like the idea of just blowing up the beaver dam--critters and all, if need be.

Just get it out of there.
 

dirt digger

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I find this thread quite interesting, because obviously we don't have beavers and I know nothing about what they do, but here in South Australia at the moment we would kill to have a dam full of water like that. If you have not heard, the River Murray, which is Australia's largest river, has been over allocated with irrigation for years and because of a run of dry seasons, a fair part of the country, including our state, is running out of water, so if you have some to spare, send it down here, but you can keep the snakes!

Rn'R.

i am taking a hydrology class i have here we are studying this exact thing of irrigation...nobody thinks about this...but 35% of the fresh water on earth (which only makes up 2.5% of the total water) is in ground water...then other 63% is in glaciers(the last 2% is rivers, lakes, etc...)...the constant pumping of ground water is affecting the rain that you get, so it is an evil cycle...you pump more because you have no rain but at the same time you are pumping the ground water which is inhibiting you from getting more rain.....so eventually you will have no more to pump, no more rain, and no more rivers....its actually kind of scary


sorry Chris for taking this thread in a different direction....

back on track...
 
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