Armadillo Removal in Canton, GA

Armadillos digging up your Canton yard

Armadillos used to be a south Georgia animal. Now they are moving north, and our crew sees more of them every year, including around Canton. The damage is easy to recognize: small cone-shaped holes scattered across the lawn, mulch flung out of the beds, and plants knocked over, all of it new since the night before. Some people say it looks like hogs rooted up the yard.

The armadillo isn't eating your plants. It is digging for grubs, worms and insect larvae a few inches down. In Canton it goes for the softest ground it can find: watered and fertilized lawns, mulched beds, and the flatter, damper soil near creeks and the Etowah. On hilly lots, the level terraces and the bottom of the slope, where water collects and the soil stays moist, usually take the most damage. Here is how a licensed Cherokee County pro deals with it.

Holes in the lawn, burrows under the house

There are two kinds of armadillo damage. The feeding holes are ugly and come back every night, but they are surface damage that can be repaired. The bigger concern is the burrow. Armadillos dig dens under decks, sheds, steps, AC pads and slabs, and along foundations. On a sloped lot, the soil behind a retaining wall or under a downhill patio is a common choice. A tunnel there can wash out or weaken the ground supporting it.

Repellents don't work

By the time most Canton homeowners call, they have tried something from the store: mothballs, castor-oil granules, predator urine, or a stake that buzzes. None of them reliably keep an armadillo away. It digs by smell and habit, and at most it shifts a few feet to another patch. Mothballs in particular don't work and shouldn't be scattered around a yard. The weeks spent trying these products are weeks of more holes.

You can't bait an armadillo

Most animals can be lured into a trap with food. Armadillos can't, because nothing reliably tempts them. So the whole method is about where the trap goes. The pro reads the yard, finds the burrow openings and the paths the armadillo uses each night, and sets wooden box traps right on those runs, often with boards or fencing that steer the animal into the trap. Georgia places no special legal restrictions on trapping armadillos, but placement takes experience.

Don't treat the lawn for grubs

It sounds logical: kill the grubs and the armadillo will leave. In practice, grub treatments are generally not recommended. As the food gets harder to find, the armadillo digs more holes looking for what is left, and the damage goes up, not down. Removing the animal is what stops the digging.

Closing off the burrow

Once the armadillo is caught, its burrow is an open invitation to the next one. The pro checks that no young are left inside, then closes the opening and protects the area with wire buried in an L-shape along the bottom of decks, sheds, porches and patio edges, so an armadillo can't dig under. On Canton's hillside lots that often means the downhill side of the house, where decks and patios stand off the ground.

When the burrow is under a slab or AC pad

A burrow under a concrete slab, a driveway edge or the pad your AC unit sits on needs attention sooner. As the tunnel grows, the soil under the concrete can shift, and the pad can start to tilt or crack. The pro traps the armadillo using the burrow itself, confirms nothing is left inside, and then closes and protects the spot. If the concrete has already shifted, have that checked separately; wildlife pros remove the animal but don't repair concrete.