HOW TO RID YOUR YARD OF ARMADILLOS IN FIVE DAYS

I never thought I’d spend January 6th, Three Kings Day, the day of Epiphany, sprinkling my urine around the perimeter of the back yard. I wasn’t performing some form of Epiphany tradition, such as sprinkling holy water or marking the door frame with chalk so that Christ would bless my home with love and grace. But rather, I celebrated the Epiphany with a jar filled to the rim of lemon-yellow pee, sprinkling it liberally along the fence line, onto newly uprooted dirt in the flowerbeds, and in freshly dug burrows leading to tunnels under the screened-in pool patio.

For fourteen years, perimeter checks were routinely carried out by my rat terrier, Scout, who sadly, is no longer with us. So, it was left to me and those better anatomically equipped of the family, to sprinkle our urine around the yard, not to commemorate the arrival of the Magi, but the arrival of one opportunistic armadillo who had taken up residence in an old tunnel under the pool patio that Scout had once dug while pursuing the menacing “big Texas three”: copperheads, cottonmouths and coral snakes.

One night while hot-tubbing, my husband, son, and I heard rooting and the shuffling of leaves. We assumed it was a raccoon or possum until my son spotted hard brown overlapping plates of armor just feet away from us on the other side of the screen. The creature seemed oblivious to our shooing and clapping and was in no particular hurry to disappear into the hole under the patio.

The next morning, I quickly searched the internet for “What to do if you see an armadillo?”

The answer read, “If you find an armadillo during the daytime, removing it from an area is easy. Chase it down, grab the long tail, and lift it off the ground. Armadillos are near-sighted, so it is often easy to get close enough to catch them.”

Not likely! I didn’t plan on grabbing its tail since they can transmit leprosy, rabies, and other harmful diseases. Next, I googled, “How to get rid of an armadillo in your yard”

 1.   Buy a durable and strong fence.

2.   Make small gates for openings on top of the burrows.

3.   Make your yard inhospitable.

4.   Get rid of small organisms that armadillos feed on in your soil.

5.   Use of mothballs doesn't work.

6.   Trapping.

7.   Use cayenne pepper.

8.   Use armadillo predator’s urine.

 I stopped reading at number 6 and called the local animal control officer. She hustled over just as quick as if I had called 911. We walked the perimeter of the yard together discussing armadillos, possums, and raccoons. I expected her to fetch a cage from her truck and set it up near the open hole, or to recommend some kind of ultrasonic armadillo-repelling contraption I’d have to purchase from Amazon for a hundred bucks.

Much to my surprise, her advice was, “If it is an armadillo, we’ve found the best way to rid your yard of them is to scatter your pee around their burrow or anywhere else they have left their tracks. Cover up the burrow with dirt. Pee on it. Then see the next day if there is evidence of fresh digging for larvae and insects. Do it for five days. If there is no sign of it, seal up the holes. If he’s still around, give me a call.”

These are the lessons one learns when one lives in Texas. I’ve added it to the list I’ve compiled in my thirty years of living here:

1.   Avoid fire ants at all costs. 

2.   Don’t underestimate the mosquitoes. 

3.   Cockroaches are not respecters of persons; they will make themselves at home in anyone’s home, no matter how clean you are. 

4.   Don’t do yard work without first checking for well-camouflaged copperhead snakes. 

5.   If you smell skunk musk, it might well be a cottonmouth “water moccasin.”

6.   The cheeky mockingbird in your yard has 250 to 350 songs in its repertoire. 

7.   The insect symphony you hear during the day is cicadas, but at night it’s a symphony of crickets, katydids, and various frogs. 

8.   If you order tea, you’re going to get it iced.

9.   Know the hurricane evacuation route out of your city.

10. Have a plan and emergency kit packed for hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods.

11. And finally, you can grab armadillos by the tail and fling them out of your yard, or better still, use your own pee to scare armadillos away.

Five days passed; no sign of the armadillo. I guess our “cocktail” of family pee did the trick! For quite some time our backyard took on the unique truck stop/gas station restroom aroma. I don’t blame the armadillo for moving on to fresher pastures.

*Published in the FACTS May 1st 2024