Mating and Raising Young of Groundhogs
Understanding more about the mating habits of groundhogs and the way they raise their young can help you to manage the mating season a little easier.
If you have a consistent problem with groundhogs on your property, or if you want to remove the risk of them coming to your property, knowing when they mate is essential. When they find a place to stay during and after mating, it is going to be harder for you to get rid of them.
The ensure process is easy to understand and straightforward, thankfully. Even if they have young, you can remove the mother and young from your property.
Mating Habits
The male groundhog will wake up from hibernation first. When they do, they will go out in search of a place to begin mating. They will create burrows and make their home habitable for the female.
This is how they attract and mate with the females. They will create everything they need, including a den for raising the young.
Once the females wake up, during spring, they will go out in search of a male. When they meet, the mating begins. Pregnant females will go into the nest and prepare to give birth.
They mate and give birth in spring, taking roughly a month to birth the babies. Once they are born, they usually stay in the den.
Raising the Young
For the first few weeks of being alive, baby groundhogs cannot see. They are entirely blind. They rely on their mother for everything, and rarely leave the tunnel unless they absolutely must. They are hairless, blind little babies that cannot do anything for themselves.
For a month and a half, they remain with their mother. After this, they begin learning how to survive on their own.
When they finally leave, they will leave their mother and leave their nest. They will find a place to call their own. Groundhogs typically live alone when not mating, so they prefer to find a place without competition.
Groundhogs are easy to understand. Their mating habits and the way they raise their young are similar to other animals like them. The young are not going to stick with the mother for long, so there is not much to it. Once they can, the groundhogs are out on their own and finding a place for themselves, even mating after a year or two.
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