Armadillo invasion
 

These disgusting little critters are migrating north and are causing some maddening damage on my property. I have learned that several of my friends are also experiencing this you. How about you? Have you any suggestions or experience with them?

I remember when as a kid, they were not north of Texas. Then according to what I have found they made it north to Missouri in the 70s. Armadillos migrated to North America through Central America and Mexico, crossing the Rio Grande River in the late 1800s. Humans also introduced them to Florida during this time.

Now, I don't intend to start an argument about climate change, but they don't like the cold and they are mostly nocturnal, but they may be more active during the day when it's cooler. Researchers believe climate change is a factor in armadillos' northward expansion, as they prefer hot weather and sandy or clay environments.

There is a ton of information out there on them, so I am not going to bore you with cutting and pasting all of it.

Below is just a small sample of the damage they have been doing to my property.

https://i.postimg.cc/cL982gfM/armadillodamage.jpg

Below is a picture of one I shot the other night a 3 AM. No, armadillos are not protected in Missouri, and are legal to hunt and trap year-round. The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) allows residents to trap or shoot armadillos that are causing damage to their property.
Armadillos are considered a nuisance because they can: Damage lawns and gardens, Burrow into the ground, and Carry bacteria that can cause leprosy.
https://i.postimg.cc/QMvKN24F/armadillo.jpg

I saw them smeared all over the high way last time I went to Oklahoma.

Yeah, until recently the highway is the only place I had ever seen them as well.

This spring there was a little one in the front yard during the day and the Mrs. alerted me to it. Not thinking I ran out there and the only thing handy was a BB gun. All that did was annoy him. When I came back in the house to get my Glock he was gone. :banghead:

these pieces of shit carry leprosy

keep your pets away

i know for a fact they've been all over the area north of springfield for years now

dad used to sit on the porch and snipe them so the dog wouldn't get into one

It’s funny you mention this. My dad and I have noticed over the past few years their northern expansion. We drive south from the Johnson County area to go fishing a lot down 69 highway or I-35 and he talks about how they you would never see them in the past. I don’t recall it either even 5 years ago. But we’ve noticed in the last few years we see more and more of them each year that have been hit on the road and they seem to be moving further and further north. It’s definitely got something to do with temperatures and probably dryness.

I had one that kept burrowing in to my well house a couple of years ago and it was a pain in my ass. I caught it in a wire box trap one night/day and by 5pm it had bent the shit out of trap and escaped. Fixed the trap and caught it a couple of days later and moved it about 20 miles south. Haven't seen any on the homestead the past couple of years.

They apparently can't see for shit.

Saw one good and flattened on the Katy Trail in Columbia.

Yeah, they've definitely made their way north.

Have lots on the farm. They generally are not an issue except when burrowing and make huge holes and mounds. hey are not what you want near any foundation.

Easy to trap once you know where they are via nothing more than 2by 8's in a V with a live trap at the narrow end. They cant see for shit and will follow the board to the trap. You cannot bait them. They run like the dickens.

It's gonna suck of the little bastards make it up to the ranch.

About 800 acres of mixed timber up there, lots of places where we take ATVs and stuff through tall grass.

That's a broken axel waiting to happen. We've hit a badger hole here and there but they're pretty rare. Those armadillos will make driving through tall grass a damn mine-field.

Yuck.

curious what you used for bait in the trap?

My brother also sent me a snap about a week ago of one I'm his yard that he got close enough to pet. Apparently they're supposed to be timid and jumpy but not aggressive.

That's why you should always keep your Glock on your person.

Oh, and good shot on the one in the picture.

Can they cover a tight end?

Might be better at blocking.

Bill knows a lot about arm dildos

I get one in my yard from time to time, and yes, they can tear up a yard in no time. Unfortunately, I can't get rid of the little assholes like you can since the cops frown on people shooting guns within city limits. I use a live trap baited with grubs to catch them, then release them out in the woods.

My favorite Armadillo.

⁶
Heck I can't even carry reading glasses and have over a dozen pair now staged in convenient places.

Thank you on the nice shot compliment but I missed two last night. It's like the suckers put the word out that I killed one of their buddies so let's go really tear his shit up!

Heh. This reminds me of the father of a girl I dated many years ago. They had a house in the woods in southern Wisconsin. The guy was a bird watching fanatic, and had several feeders around the house. Squirrels would constantly get in the feeders, and he hated the squirrels. He'd sit in the yard and shoot them with a pellet gun for hours. One day he ended up with a pile of thirty or forty dead squirrels. It was kind of a losing proposition, though; there were always more of them. But at least they're easy to kill.

They are also notorious for carrying rabies.

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/Wn...kmFCEryuWc.jpg

Badass!

Nothing. took a couple of treated 4x4 posts and built a sort of funnel next to the well house and it just walked in.

He would make a nice cake.

“What do you want for dinner?”

“How about that place that serves grubs with the ride home service?”

“Oh yeah sounds good. Love that place!”

Tarkus

It's been several years now but the last time I went up to Stockton Lake to Quail hunt on the Corp ground. I swear there was a damned Armadillo under ever bush. Dogs kept pointing the nasty things. It was ridiculous. There should be a bounty put on those ugly critters.

ROFL

I take them about 10 miles from here. The little shits don't even tip me

Those cute little turtle rats

These ****ers look like the original illegal immigrants

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...C&opi=89978449

Nasty critters

You probably have grubs. Treat the grubs and they will leave your lawn alone.

Giant rats

Argentina is infested with armadillo's so this idea that they're incapable of living in colder climates is alarmist BS (it's 26 degree's in Salta and you'll find armadillo's there)...They proliferate because they bread like pigs and eat anything and everything and can reproduce faster than they can be killed off by coyote's.

I've got my .22 ready for a couple raccoons roaming around the area. I should put my trap out.

A quick search shows that there are real biological reasons that they prefer winters less harsh than what you get the further north you go.

Also there are a variety of species, some native to Argentina, so no surprise they do well there. Interestingly this article shows that the US armadillo is actually a different species than the similar one in Argentina, which apparently was typically thought to be the same due to the similar appearance.

https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/nat...289577360.html

Yes sir, I do treat them annually with Merit per the recommendation of 2112. It has worked getting rid of the Japanese beetles that were such a pest.

But obviously it hasn't eliminated all of them this season. Last night, per the recommendation of an old friend I put several small open containers of Pinesol
around the yard and lit the yard up pretty well. It seems to have worked.

That is interesting and very different from all that I could find to read about them.
I am starting to get concerned about our family farm in NW Kansas now as their northern migration continues.

I can only imagine how bad they would **** up a nice planted field.

One of my friends in Wichita with the same city issue sent me this message this morning.


"Hey Ed I got him tonight with my . 177 pellet rifle with 2 shots to his body and then smashed his head with my Ball bat."

Armored rats.

I wouldn't know for sure but I bet a .22 mag is just about perfect for them....lol. 9mm also works great they just crawl off and die somewhere. Those things are mostly dumb enough for you to drive right up to them and lean out the window I think.

Why did you move it? They are rats with armor. If you caught a rat on your property, would you move it 20 miles away or kill it?

A .22 round is cool to kill them but it won't stop them. I shot one last year and it crawled underneath the pool deck. Use a 9.

Send the grandkids to go out and chase them around the yard. Tell them you will give them a $20 bill for every one. Dead or alive. They likely won't catch or kill one. But it would probably be damn funny watching.

12 gauge slug would do the trick as well. Would be therapeutic, too. :)

I"ve killed a ****ton of these bastards

shoot them on sight, it's legal

https://mdc.mo.gov/wildlife/nuisance...adillo-control

There is no hunting or trapping season for the armadillo. However, the Wildlife Code of Missouri specifies that damage-causing armadillos may be trapped or shot to prevent further damage. Refer to 3 CSR 10-4.130 Owner May Protect Property; Public Safety of the Code for details and restrictions.



**** those things, the buzzards eat their corpses after they suffer lead poisoning

They are nasty , just another reason cuss a Texan

This is what I used and still missed a couple times being half asleep in the middle of the night from about 120 ft. Its the only long gun I own besides the BB gun. Amazing those shells are over 60 years old, check the price, $3.19 for 25 of them. :D
https://i.postimg.cc/y8pJJzHz/12gaugeshells.jpg[/url]
https://i.postimg.cc/JnZtdDB1/Browninglight12.jpg

https://eartharchives.org/articles/t...cas/index.html

https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s...jpg?1535977126

Could be worse. 10,000 years ago, these 2-ton giant armadillos with spiked tails wandered the plains.

You need more guns! :D

Four guns is plenty for this old man. I believe that 7 1/2 shot is a quail load IIRC. Probably have some bigger loads in the gun cabinet.

Yes.

They say they have super strong lungs which is why they can cross wide rivers.
I was in okc where my son was stationed in the Air Force and he ran over one and it got caught under his car. It made a a horrible screeching sound for a couple miles until we pulled into a toll booth and he got out and took a ball bat and knocked it out of there.
sec

I've seen one swim and it was shocking how ****ing fast that thing moved through the water, could not believe it

Armidillo by morning.mp3

Seeing as they can run 30 mph those kids will need to be faster than any human on earth.

I love my Auto-5s and other Brownings. I have a whole chest full of ammo and some of it has to be twenty years old. I used to buy a box of shells every time I'd walk into Walmart. Wouldn't be surprised if I don't have 1000 rounds of 12,16,20 and 28 gauge shells. A few hundred .22 rounds for the Buck Mark pistol which I haven't shot in several years. I have some .45s for the Colt 45 I used to have. The 16 and 28 gauge are my favorites. The 16 is a bird slaying machine.

Very cool! How much does a box of shotgun shells cost now? You must have a large gun safe? I have a couple cousins that have walk in gun safes.

Did you notice the price tag on the box of shells in my picture? It was purchased in 1960 at Kidwell's hardware on Kellogg in Wichita that closed down about 71 when they widened Kellogg, lol. Crazy they still fire so well.

I just checked my cabinet and I not only have a box of 6s that we used to use for pheasant, I have a box of 00 that I am going to use for these armored rats.

<a href="https://www.lvzoo.org/animals/nine-banded-armadillo/">Nine Banded Armadillo's Are Found in Argentina</a>

They just burrow into the ground in the winter (opossums in shells). Many years ago I'd worked with somebody from Argentina and they were surprised to see these dumb pieces of shit (9 banded) loitering around. You don't see them where I live now because the soil sucks. But there's no reason they can't survive in a subtropical climate that has ideal soil (midwest).

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jUGl4K6M9Rc?si=vyAATt_C6ZjjvhAV" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

That sounds like... fun. :)

A little research and I find shotgun shells are more than $20.00 a box depending on what you choose to shoot. I think last time I was actively buying ammo they were a little above $10.00 a box which was high then.

Armadillo invasion
 

That DNA research I linked is saying the nine banded armadillo found in Argentina doesn’t actually live in the US. Regardless they certainly have limits to the levels of cold they can tolerate. Thats not to say they can’t keep adapting as they move further north though.

Very interesting, thanks

not sarcastic-this is an interesting thread
Feral pigs- now armadillos

The Armadillos are wearing my ass out. I have been getting up every couple hours to check and see if they are out there. Each morning I go out with a hoe and pitchfork to repair the damage.

I bought some motion activated lights today and hopefully that will help. I have the shotgun loaded with 00 shells ready to go.

We made the trip to Springfield today and saw at least a half dozen road kill Armadillos on the way. Stopped at the big hardware store in Nixa asking for traps and there were several other people in there checking on the same thing due to Armadillo damage.

Speaking of hogs, my son in law shot these a couple days ago, the same morning I shot the Armadillo, on his property in Texas.

https://i.postimg.cc/7Ptbkv1F/hogs.jpg

Dammit, Biden opened up the border and these bad mothers have found their way to Ky! :D :rolleyes:

Well I may have stumbled on to a solution after much deliberation.

So far, this is the second night in a row without any prolonged visits from these armored rats that I am aware of and zero damage yesterday after a thorough check.

I had been considering the trap thing and shopped them on Amazon, Ebay and the big hardware store in Nixa. A one use approximate $70 expenditure that might not work but I would have paid double that for something that would positively kill the things instantly.

So, when at Sam's on Wednesday I picked up some motion detector lights for $17. If I had spent more time looking at them I probably wouldn't have bought them since they need to be plugged into AC. But, after running a long extension cord out there and setting them up where the Armadillos had been most active it seems to be working. :p

Anyone thought of an electric fence? I am on 10 acres and had some horses back in the day. Pain in the ass to maintain, but kept the horses in????? Or armored rats out?

An M1A1 would work as well

Cant remember if it was FB or Reddit.

Someone had run over an armadillo in Adair county, IA.

They began showing up on our farm in KS in the 2000s, IIRC.

Wow, I had no idea they had made it that far north.


Southern part of the state I hope? Have they damaged your crops?

I have been getting concerned about what they would do on our farm in NW Kansas.

I live in the country north of Springfield. I can concur. I see them all the time.

Those critters are all over SWMO.

I have eliminated two of them from being a problem. They are now buzzard food.
My motion detector lights turned out to be folly and so did the trap I bought. They weren't the least bit interested in the dog food I used for bait.
Double 00 shot works good though.

https://i.postimg.cc/tTKdj45p/armadillo1.jpg

Killed another one at 2:45 this morning. Hopefully that will be the end of these little bastards for a while.

Kind of crazy how getting up to pee and ending up shooting the 12 gauge gets your heart rate up, making it difficult to go back to sleep. :D

Nice job cleaning up the trash....
The only good Armadillo is a dead Armadillo

I could not agree more. The critter did a lot damage on it's "last shot"


https://i.postimg.cc/1XmQLVKg/armadillo1029.jpg

"Have you any suggestions or experience with them?"

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...-048-white.jpg