Armadillo Antidote

[Gem99ultra]

Does anyone have an antidote for armadillos? Those critters just tear up the yard, looking for grubs I suppose. I can't afford to spray the entire 1 acre yard with pesticides, not that I'd want to kill off every living thing in the yard anyway.

Is there something that I can do to make them not want to come into the yard? I'm hoping for something like an owl figurine, or a scarecrow, etc. that will deter them. Any suggestions or quick fixes would be appreciated.

 

[CurlyDave]

Are they protected?

I have always been partial to bullets in this kind of situation.

It could be worse. I have deer eating our (supposedly deer-resistant) landscaping and it is against the law to shoot them...

 

[mddorange]

I found that my 22 works well when I hit them.

 

[Bird]

I remember seeing one in a live trap a few years ago, but don't know what the property owner used for bait. I know golf course managers hate those things.:laughing:

 

[RalphVa]

I kept them out of my garden in Baton Rouge with 6" high fencing around it.

Ralph

 

[weldingisfun]

Live trap, using a banana as bait, then a .22 cal in the brain pan. Works every time it is tried. :thumbsup:

 

[polo1665]

Heavy doses of snow, and extreme cold during the winter months must work. I've never seen one in my yard.

Of course, we do have skunks, and they will tear up some yard getting after the grubs.

 

[Gem99ultra]

hehehe - thanks for the recommendations. So far, I think they all probably work. With deeper thinking about the replies, I suspect that it's been a very long, cold, and boring winter

 

[The Suburban Farmer]

I have to agree with the .22 comments. Where I grew up in Texas, we used to take care of our armadillo problem "from a distance."

I think that is an even wiser approach given this recent article:

Three cases of leprosy in eastern Florida 'linked to armadillos'

Health officials on the east coast of Florida have diagnosed three cases of leprosy in the last five months, linking two of the cases to contact with armadillos. The small armored mammals are known to harbor the disease in the southern US.

A large concentration of US leprosy cases are diagnosed in the south-east, in states such as Florida, Louisiana and Texas. Scollard’s team is part of a federal effort to research the disease and combat misperceptions among the public.

The link between leprosy infections and armadillo contact was established in a 2011 research paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine by a team which includes Scollard. The scientists genotyped strains of leprosy found in three Americans who had never traveled abroad and one wild armadillo, and found they “were essentially identical”.

 

[JSanders10]

A few years back, I unofficially authorized my 25 yo son and a friend to get 'em a case of beer and .22s each, and keep night watch.
They got two, and two more a few weeks later.

But the armamillos continue to march northward.
When I was 18 and left south Alabama for college in 1979, I had never seen one of the possums on a half shell.
30 years later, they have advanced north of Birmingham.