I have a woodland garden that gets covered in wood chips after every weeding.
During droughts, the armadillo come and tear everything up.
The home owner was able to achieve a bit of satisfaction last year with a shotgun.
I warned him that hunting was going to have very limited success...

he's out there raking the paths smooth ...
That's an unsatisfying bit of unending labour.

He's complaining that he's not seeing armadillo when he goes out with the shotgun... I did warn him...

At my previous garden, I spent a lot of effort trying to fence those little bastards out...
Repairing the fence by flashlight... and as soon as I repaired one section of fence, they'd tear a new hole or 3...

They'd spend their time testing every inch of fence for weakness... and an animal that can tear it's way out of a havahart trap... can also rip through a fence anytime it wants...

Eventually... I understood that I wasn't ever going to successfully fence armadillo out...

Much simpler to find and monitor holes in the fence... when there's evidence of use... place trap there.



This pic is from my house... that armadillo isn't going to bother anyone...

Still haven't convinced the townie that a trap is the way to go...
But raking the pathways every morning soon gets old.

Can armadillos be relocated?

Don't do that... Unless you plan to take it back to Texas...

They're not supposed to be here.
And catching and dumping just educates the problem animal...

I've been having huge problems with raccoons this year... where someone's been dumping them out near me... and trapping a cage wary animal is not easy.

Most of these pests are illegal to dump...

Even the humane society disapproves of trap and dump...
https://www.humanesociety.org/...

We have armadillos here too. I've never seen a live one though, they're always dead on the side of the road.

Do the raccoons cause you issues too? We had one that tried to take off with my suet one day (broke the feeder) and pooped in the yard (🤮). I thought it washing its hands in the bird bath was okay until it decided to use the yard as a bathroom.

I just hope that if people have to dispose of an animal (not implying you here), that they do it humanely. I read of someone drowning an armadillo. That just sounds awful.

A bullet and a burial...
Death is never easy... But to me? Drowning doesn't sound bad.

Raccoons kill my chickens, they've started biting them through the wire...
Had a raccoon come by a few nights ago that dug under the door of the pen that some roosters were in... killed all the roos b4 carrying one off...
Not any call for that... That's the kind of behaviour I expect from dogs..,.

Well, at least a bullet is quicker than drowning. And more humane if done right. Drowning just sounds cruel.

I'm not sure one can compare a wild animal to a domesticated one though.

Hamwild said: I'm not sure one can compare a wild animal to a domesticated one though.

In this frinstance, I certainly can...
I've also lost birds to dogs... One night they went from pen to pen... Killing everything...
Lost 25 birds in a single night... I eventually got up, heard an inappropriate sound... went and investigated... Buried dog(s) with kill.

Wasn't my only run-in with dogs out here... There's people dumping dogs here too...

People like to dump dogs around here too. The neighboring county has had an issue with strays for years.

So... What do those people expect to happen to those dogs?
If they've become problem animals... shoot them... Don't dump them out to starve! And otherwise cause problems for people...

Trapped a raccoon overnight... large healthy looking dude... Suspect him of being the culprit of the rooster slaughter last week...

Nebody want a coonskin cap? Seems like a goodun fer that...

I don't think the kind of people that dump dogs care what happens to them.

I kept chickens, years ago, in a very wooded area. I never killed the Opossums or Racoons who got in, because we take over THEIR territory. It is our job to secure our poultry from native predators properly. Secure everything, keep strong fencing, curve about 3 feet out from the bottom of the fence and bury that piece. Always check your flock just before dark. I know many who have killed snakes, foxes, Opposum, and Racoons. That's not really fair. It's kinda like dropping a Dunkin' Donuts into a Weight Watcher's camp! Find a better way. We did )I found, illegally) relocate many Opposum. We just buckled down and fixed whatever we saw as an overlooked security breach.

obouder said:illegally relocate many Opposum. We just buckled down and fixed whatever we saw as an overlooked security breach.

If you are dumping your problem animals at my house, that's just more animals that I have to shoot.

Worse, after you've trapped them, they become even more difficult for me.

Don't expect anybody to cheer over your solutions.

stone, by accident or intent you've misrepresented what obouder said by removing a bit of punctuation from within your quote of him/her and by truncating what the poster said. The poster was speaking in a past tense of the relocation of possums and even admitted to his/her wrong-doing, but you omitted that. I, for one, will definitely cheer their solution of making their pens and coops impenetrable to predators which, according to my reading comprehension, is what they say their solution was/is.

I agree with you that once an animal has been trapped they are definitely trap-wary and it's near to impossible to trap them again if they are released. No argument with that.

I'm not above killing an animal out of necessity and I won't condemn anyone for shooting a marauding animal...the animals become frenzied during a killing spree and have learned where they can find easy pickin's. But, I will condemn someone for repeatedly leaving their livestock unsecured behind a piecemeal, flimsy fence that encourages the marauders...if the animals are getting through the fence and to the chickens then the fence *is* woefully flimsy. If the predators learn they can't get through a secure fence to the prey, they move on elsewhere...they've still got a hungry stomach that they need to fill and they realize it won't get filled at this spot.

Cheers to the poster for having a secure area for his/her chickens!!!

stone said: If you are dumping your problem animals at my house, that's just more animals that I have to shoot.

Worse, after you've trapped them, they become even more difficult for me.

Don't expect anybody to cheer over your solutions.

I need you around here.
I agree strong fencing/preventive methods doesn't always work. If a pest is desperate enough to kill your livestock or destroy your property, it will do so even if it hurts itself ripping through your preventive method. Only an electric fence or a gun will stop a racoon.
Also I agree that shooting/killing is better than dumping. Don't give your animal problem to someone else or disrupt the ecosystem by putting it where it doesn't belong.
Dog dumping rarely happens here but anything that does gets left either gets hauled further down the road, ignored or run off. Too far to drive to the nearest shelter and I don't want a smelly dog shedding or using the bathroom in the vehicle.
It's too hard to bury a dead animal (or anything) here because of the clay soil being too hard most of the year. Just throwing the body out in the woods would not only smell, but attract coyotes and hogs.

TomatoNut95 said: I need you around here.
I agree strong fencing/preventive methods doesn't always work. If a pest is desperate enough to kill your livestock or destroy your property, it will do so even if it hurts itself ripping through your preventive method. Only [u]an electric fence or a gun will stop a racoon. <...snip>

Seems rather contradictory.

stone said:
Don't expect anybody to cheer over your solutions.

Im sorry to say that a lot of people would cheer for that solution. Too many people put too much importance on animals because they want to treat them as equals to humans. They put food out for wild animals. They're against killing animals anymore, even by a humane method. That's why shelters are crammed full to the brim with cats and dogs because they don't want to put any to sleep anymore. People will sooner spend hundreds to thousands of dollars to have an animals leg amputated or some other surgery before putting it down. Those kind of people are selfish. They're only thinking of themselves and not realizing they're really doing more harm than good to the animals. Too many animals in a territory upsets the balance of the animals. It also endangers humans because of the diseases wild animals can transmit, plus animal attacks have increased over the years.
Territory only belongs to animals until a human moves in. You can't stop the spread of humans, we have to go somewhere to. We work and pay for our property and we don't appreciate animals tearing it up. Preventive methods don't always work. Humans have had to kill animals for centuries for whatever reasons necessary. It's not cruel. It's life.
It's more cruel to a wild animal to relocate it than to destroy it. Animals don't think or feel the same way as humans (although animals are smarter than humans in some instances).

Intheswamp said: Seems rather contradictory.

I said 'doesnt always' work. Not, 'preventive methods don't work at all'. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Depends on the animal and the situation.

TomatoNut95 said: I said 'doesnt always' work. Not, 'preventive methods don't work at all'. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Depends on the animal and the situation.

So you stand guard with a gun, 24/7/365, rather than putting up an effective fence that will protect your livestock and allow you *and* your stock to sleep at night? Otherwise, it's "Ok, I'll let'em kill my chickens and *then* I'll kill them!". It's not logical. I'm not a bambi-lover or a tree-hugger but it seems rather foolish to lose your livestock when you could have prevented it to start with...unless, of course, you're using them to bait the varmits up with to give you an excuse to shoot them. But, I'm out of here...

Intheswamp said: stone, by accident or intent you've misrepresented what obouder said by removing a bit of punctuation from within your quote of him/her and by truncating what the poster said.

I really couldn't make heads or tails out of the punctuation.
I quoted it the way that it made sense to me.

If above poster meant to be quoting, suggest the use of quote tags...
find relevant tags here:
https://garden.org/special/pag...

If they've successfully found a positively varmint proof way to enclose the birds, more power to them.

Every time I think I've solved that issue, a varmint finds a way to kill birds anyway.

So for me, it's going to be belt and suspenders, keep improving the chicken fortress, and kill the problem animals that find a way through my defenses.

TomatoNut95 said: I need you around here.

It's too hard to bury a dead animal (or anything) here because of the clay soil being too hard most of the year. Just throwing the body out in the woods would not only smell, but attract coyotes and hogs.

Whereabouts in tx are you?

I bury animals in garden... soil is already broken up... animals break down same as other organic matter...

In my area, carcasses do far worse than attract wild animals... they provide a place for the fly populations to escalate to insane proportions... and then? The flies hang around the front door trying to get in each time door is opened...