Armadillos

Well call me a sucker if you want. A-zon delivered two 5 lbs. containers of cayenne pepper powder late today. I played it safe and dawned a mask and opened one if the containers. I went about applying 3 perimeters 3 feet apart all around the house. Was surprised at how far a 5 lbs. container would go.......

It might not keep them away, but I can tell you for sure, if the bastards eat grubs and worms at my place tonight they'll be eating spicy ones.
Well that wasn't tooooooooooooo smart. Now the Dillos will be digging more looking for the Crawfish. :) :)
 
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Back in the 70's you only saw them in the southern half of Arkansas but now I have seen them pretty far north in Missouri.
 
Possum = good
Dillo = bad

I hot one with my truck last week. It was a biggun...loud clunk.

When there was a family of them living under the slab foundation of my neighbor's house I finally trapped them and took them elsewhere. They're easy to catch and easy to release. Don't be surprised by what else you trap though...
 
Perryville, Mo.MO. Yes the white stuff is snow.
 

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I live in Michigan and obviously we don't have any here but I've never seen one in my life.
Is the shell or armor tough like a turtle shell, if you smack it with a ball bat does it just basically
bounce off? Around here it's mostly just the skunks that dig up yards.
 
If there are grub worms in your lawn or flower bed, you have much bigger problems than the occasional visits by 'Dillo excavating machines. The grubs will eat the grass roots, killing the grass. Then the grubs (or their adult-stage counterparts - June bugs, et al) will move on to "greener pastures." Only at that point will the armadillos stop digging up your yard.

Short cut: kill the grubs. 'Dillos won't search for them, cause the 'Dillos know there aren't any to be found.

The way to know you're gonna have grubs is when you see tons of June bugs in your yard (on the concrete steps, etc.) at night in early summer. They're there to deposit offspring who will enjoy the next feast.

This ain't rocket science.
 
I'm in east TN. north of Knoxville, we don't have them. Went to Franklin TN a couple of weeks ago for a funeral and started seeing dead ones on the interstate starting about Crossville. They are getting closer.
I was wondering about that since we have our sights set on relocating to E. TN as you know.

My dad was from TX and my grandparents had a small, by TX standards (only 108 acres), "ranch" down there (ranch in quotes because it was so dry it could only support 10-12 head of cattle) and they had armadillos quite often. My grandmother used to chase them around and beat them with a baseball bat. She was a tough cookie. My grandfather used to burn the needles off prickly pear cactus with a flame thrower so the cows could eat them, but he quit that when his overalls caught fire one day and he got 3rd degree burns on both legs (he was a welder on the railroad before they had the best gear and was legally blind with just tunnel vision in one eye, so sometimes didn't see things going awry).
 
Coincidentally, I just stumbled onto this pic while looking for something else. My Texas grandparents at their place outside Godley, a town that used to be nowheresville but is now a highly desirable community commutable to Ft. Worth and has one of the best school districts in the state thanks to all the natural gas tax revenues. That is my 1978 International Scout with its Colorado plate, so this pic must be from 1980, I remember going down there that year and then my grandmother the armadillo hunter died in 1981.

Scout-Number-1-Texas-GPs.jpg
 
WMG,, I wouldn't let the idea of armadillos keep you from moving to east Tn.
Ha! No, it won't, just curious if they had made their way there yet. We have heard of alligators in Memphis but that won't stop us either. The only thing stopping us is home prices being double what they were when we first decided on the area and started looking in 2018/2019 before we were married and we each owned a house in VT and had jobs, so buying another house 800+ miles away was not practical. We got married in 2020, wife sold her house in 2021, and we both retired later in 2021, so now that we're ready, we can't find anything affordable that checks all the boxes (or at least most of them). We are finally seeing pandemic pricing start to unwind with longer time on market and even some price reductions. Must-haves are a mountain view and walkout basement. Nearly everything else on our wish list can be added.
 
They dig up your lawn and garden looking for grubs. They nest in burrows that they dig and cattle ranchers hate them because their cattle step in their burrows and trip sometime breaking their legs,
Ah. Thank you for posting this. Nice to learn something new. Didn't know much about them since we don't have them here. The major pests in my area are squirrels. They get into attics and destroy what's there, including roof insulation. They also chew throw eave bottoms to nest. They truly suck.
 
They dig like the dickens and can nest under your house with huge holes that they burrow through. Took several sakrete bags to seal.
 

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I just went out to get the mail and there must have been 20 holes dug overnight. This was the biggest I saw, but I didn't walk the yard over. That's an official baseball. I could have easily fit a softball in the hole with room left over.

This is war! :mad:


 
That damage is worth staying up one night until you get him. A full Moon helps. I have used a 12 GA with #6 shot since a 22 rifle is hard to aim accurately in the dark.
 
Oh, you ain't seen nuthin' yet! I went over to my PU that's parked in the grass and there was a huge mound of dirk kicked out from under my truck. Around the truck were 20 more holes and a huge one under it. I loaded my Bearcat because the holster doesn't show much under my t-shirt. I am in a subdivision, but my neighbors are all cool. I got 3 big rags and doused them with 90% kerosine and 10% gas and stuffed it down the hole. Woosh!

I covered it mostly with a cinder block so I could see it move if it tried to get out. Nada. I think it just dug a really big hole. If I see it I'm shooting it in the head!






I bought some of this when I first noticed the problem around Nov., but it said not to spray it until June. The hell with that! I wish they still has Diazinon. I used to have a beautiful lawn in the 90's and I'd kill probably 10,000 white grubs per treatment.



ronto, I hope the spray works as good as the granules you mentioned.

I just might become nocturnal 😈
 
Cholo you might want to organize a night of shooting at your place with some of the members here. You could call the Po-Pos and let them know what's up with the extermination process.

Call Contender.
 
There's a famous high school "homer call of the week" from Godley, TX.

Yes, kill all armadillos you can. They always birth identical quintuplets.

Possums are good though.
 
WMG,, keep looking around. Prices on homes has been dropping back & such,, in odd places. If you are willing to be a little bit away from some of the "modern conveniences, (Wally world, fast food joints etc,) there are still places you can find a fair deal.

James from Jersey,,,,,,,,,, Welcome old friend!!!!!!!!! Good to see you here!!!!!!!

Cholo,, yep,, dillo holes where they were digging for food. Not any den holes. Treat heavily for the grubs. Treat the yard, mulch beds etc. I always advise folks to "Start at the edge of the house & work outward." And find the best (strongest) grub killer you can.
 
I went under my rear deck to get a shovel to fill in the holes so I can mow and then spray for the grubs. I couldn't move a large rake to get to the shovel. Why? It was covered by a big pile of dirt. I flipped over my canoe and there was his hole, and it's deep!

I can't burn him out under there, but I can make his life miserable. I read mothballs, ammonia and vinegar and things an armadillo hates. Problem is the mothballs and ammonia make toxic fumes and I don't know if his hole comes up under my house.

What to do...

The light you see is my flashlight.



 
I MacGyver'd it LOL I took about 4.5' of hard tubing and dumped the mothballs down it. Then I dumped 2.5 gallons of ammonia down where it would be right on the mothballs. Before I did this I crawled under my house to make sure he hadn't burrowed into my crawl space. I don't know how toxic that combo will be, but I didn't want to be breathing it!

I then covered the hole with 4 cinder blocks.

I wait...
 
Get a couple of bags quick set sac-krite concreate mix pour it out push as much in the hole as you can wet it with the hose. This worked last year under my deck steps.

I got so pissed off with that one I was ready to use dynamite.
 

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