Armadillo Removal in Adairsville, GA

Armadillos digging up your Adairsville yard

Nine-banded armadillos have been moving north through Georgia for years, and our crew says they see more of them every year. The country around Adairsville suits them well. Woodlots and brushy fence rows give them cover during the day, and pasture edges, creek bottoms and the watered lawns of homes and subdivisions give them soft ground full of grubs and earthworms. They feed at night, so the first sign is usually a yard that looks like hogs rooted through it, with cone-shaped holes across the lawn and mulch thrown out of the beds.

Most homeowners try a repellent first, and it doesn't work. Armadillos find food by smell, not by sight, and nothing sold in a store reliably keeps them away from good digging. They can't be lured with bait either. What works is a pro who reads the yard, finds the paths the armadillo uses, and sets traps right on them. On a farm lot or a big yard on the edge of a subdivision, that usually means looking where the lawn meets the woods or the fence row.

Holes in the lawn, tunnels under the porch

There are two kinds of armadillo damage. The first is feeding holes: shallow cones across the lawn and beds, new every morning. They look bad, but you can repair them. The second is burrows: tunnels dug under porches, sheds, steps, AC pads and slab edges. An old farmhouse porch built on piers or block, or a shed sitting on the ground, gives an armadillo a protected entrance. Over time a burrow can undermine what's built over it. That's why you shouldn't let one stay.

Why Adairsville yards get hit

Armadillos go where the ground is soft and full of insects. Around Adairsville, that means pasture edges, creek bottoms and especially irrigated lawns and garden beds next to woods or fence rows. A watered lawn stays soft when the surrounding ground is hard, and it attracts armadillos from the nearby cover. After a rainy stretch, the digging often gets worse. Newer homes built on former pasture can get hit hard because the yard sits right where the armadillos already travel.

Repellents, mothballs and grub killer

Castor-oil granules, predator urine, ultrasonic stakes and mothballs don't keep armadillos away. Mothballs especially shouldn't be put around a house for any animal problem. Treating the lawn for grubs seems logical, but pros generally don't recommend it, because when grubs get scarce the armadillo digs more holes looking for what's left, and the damage gets worse. Each week spent trying these things means another week of new holes.

Trapping: placement, not bait

Pros will tell you there's nothing you can bait an armadillo with. Trapping depends entirely on placement. The most effective approach is a pre-set wooden box trap placed directly on the run, the path the armadillo follows between its cover and the digging, often with boards or fencing to steer it into the trap. Finding that path at the edge of a woodlot or fence row is the skill a pro brings. There are no legal restrictions on trapping armadillos in Georgia.

Closing the burrow afterward

Once the armadillo is caught, the burrow is still there, and another armadillo will move into it. The pro makes sure the burrow is empty, including any young, then fills or closes it and installs a buried wire barrier around porches, sheds and slab edges so nothing can dig back under. On farm property, the pro may also suggest clearing brush where it meets the lawn so armadillos have less cover close to the yard.

When another one shows up

Armadillos don't have many natural predators here, and our mild winters don't slow them down much. If one armadillo found your yard, others traveling the same woodlot and fence-row routes may find it too. That's why a good job includes checking back for new activity and making sure the burrow barriers are holding. Catching one animal solves this week's problem. Closing off the burrows and reducing cover keeps it from happening again.