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Losing fight with armadillo
Published Friday, July 17, 2009
I am in a battle with an armadillo at my home and I am losing. Yep. The four-legged, armor coated creature has won the last two confrontations we’ve had. Being outsmarted by an animal many times smaller than I am has been a blow to my ego. But like the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote I have another plan ready to go.
My first contact with an armadillo was more than 50 years ago when a Tallapoosa County resident brought a picture of one he found on his farm into our newsroom. We didn’t have a clue what it was and had to go to the local library to identify it.
I remember writing a news story about the armadillo must have had tired feet because we understood from library sources armadillos at that time were mainly found in South Florida, Louisiana and Texas.
During the past 50 years, an adequate supply of armadillos has moved north and can be found all over Chilton County. I don’t think they are as numerous as rabbits, but their population is catching up.
But you already know armadillos are here if you drive at night just about anywhere so let me get back to my new plan.
I’m going to use a fish net to capture the critter when he comes up to a water pan used by my wife’s two dogs when they are outside. I tried this plan earlier this week but my fishing dip net was old and he ran through the netting with very little difficulty. I believe a new net with a longer handle and much stronger netting is just what I need.
Emmet Huff loaned me a large cage-trap that will spring shut and capture the armadillo inside. He suggested I use a banana for bait. I remember thinking “Emmet I am not trying to catch a monkey...just a dumb armadillo.”
Well the armadillo made a monkey out of me by walking into the trap and right back out again.
If the trap doesn’t work before I can put my new net plan in the works, I can still use the cage part of the trap to house the armadillo after I net him. At least, that is part of the plan.
By now my friends who are hunters must be asking why I just don’t shoot the beast. In fact, Kirk Stokes said the best advice he could give me was to use a shotgun. He said that always works.
But I don’t like killing things and want to solve my problem with out bloodshed.
My wife, Peggy, however, took one look at the destruction the four-legged bulldozer has done to her flower gardens and gave me my marching orders. She agrees with Kirk.
I have full confidence in my plan, but if you have had a similar experience with an armadillo and would like to share the plan you used to trap it, drop me an email at mike.kelley@clantonadvertiser.com. Your advice will be my next plan.
– Mike Kelley is publiser of The Clanton Advertiser. He can be reached by e-mail at mike.kelley@clantonadvertiser.com. His column appears in Weekend.
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Comments
Posted by rclgel1 (anonymous) on July 18, 2009 at 7:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The live trap will work best. It can do it's work while you sleep. And if you have other intruders (there are lots of raccoons around to), it can catch them. Here are two hints. The traps stay outside, in the rain and early morning due. They get rusty or at least sluggish in closing. Try some WD40 and open and close the trap by hand a few times. You will be able to feel it getting looser. Second, use a chicken leg and tie it to the bottom of the trap. The harder it is for the critter to get the bait out, the more likely he is to spring the trap. By the way, if you catch a coon, remember, they can reach their hands through the trap a scratch you. I found that a claw hammer in each hand is a wonderful safety tool. Also remember, the normal range of these animals is 7 to 8 miles. If you let it free too close to home, it will just come back.
Posted by November162000 (anonymous) on July 18, 2009 at 10:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Just shoot the ---- thing already!
Posted by ATC1962 (anonymous) on July 18, 2009 at 8:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I could be wrong but, remember hearing these creatures like to dig for grub worms and bugs. You might check into seeing if there is something you can put on the lawn to help remove what they keep digging up. Good Luck.
Posted by TheDude (Michael Wells) on July 19, 2009 at 11:13 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, ah know somebody, who knew somebody else, that knew this dude, that told anuther dude how to get rid a them critter's. This ain't no lie and ah wouldn't let ya waste yer money! Go ta Wa ..Wal .. dang WALMART an buy a big bag a Dubble Bubble bubble gum. You know, the ones that the paper twists on both ends. Been around fer years. I'm chewing on one ah found stuck under the terlet seat a minute ago. Still got flavor to it! ANYWAY ... it don't cost much. Buy yerself a couple of bags. When ya get home, take the wrappers off a bunch of em' and just throw em' around the yard around where you think or has seen them armadiller's. The sucker's cain't digest the dadgum gum! Somehow, they run off and it kills em! HA! YEAH! SERUS FOLKS! Try it. Jus watch and see ifn the gum starts disappearin', then see what happens.
Posted by angieid (anonymous) on July 20, 2009 at 4:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
i dont know much about armadillos but i know that opposums love alleycat catfood ... i found out that information one spring morning in 2000 in a dimly lit kitchen at 4 am...no problem i said to myself and simply turned around and walked calmly to the bedroom and told my boyfriend of the situation and that if he wanted coffee and a lunch made hed better go take care of it..... my boyfriend threw a five gallon bucket on top of it .. slid a board under the bucket and took it outside to the woods behind the house to release it... and i thought everything was just fine..... thats what ya get for thinking when you arent used to it.. after my boyfriend drank his required pot of coffee and got ready for work he opened the door to go warm up the van and lo and behold the critter ran right past him back into the house and straight at me( i was fixing his lunch on the counter beside the food bowl)....... i immediately went airborne over the bar to the recliner ... cleared the end table and lamp onto the sofa.... ran down the sofa and when i got to the end went airborne again landed in front of the bathroom door.... another jump from the bathroom door to the center of the bed screaming at the top of my lungs...... i finally decided to quit screaming and heard a bit of a scuffle coming from the direction of the kitchen and the roaring of him laughing hysterically at me for being such a fraidy cat..... he had trapped the thing again in the bucket but this time sealed the bucket lid on it... he put his shoes on put the bucket with its contrary passenger in the van and left for work.. he called me when hed gotten about fifteen miles from the house to tell me that if i wanted to make sure i didnt run into that opposum again i needed to stay away from hwy 51 near the creek.... still giggling at my reaction.. its been over nine yrs since that day and i still cant bring myself to turn onto hwy 51 for any reason.. ill go five miles outta the way just to avoid that opossum.. i hope that armadillos dont like alleycat as much as that durn critter did lol!
Posted by jsfpilot2b (anonymous) on July 21, 2009 at 9:05 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I took one out last winter with a 300 Winchester Mag. I was trying to deer hunt and had been listening to it scavenge for over an hour.
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