Armadillo Removal in Powder Springs, GA

Armadillos digging up your Powder Springs yard

Our crew says armadillos are more common every year in this part of Georgia. Powder Springs is right in their path. The open, semi-rural land toward the county line, with fields, pasture and wooded tracts, gives them room to live, and newer subdivisions built out toward it put irrigated lawns and mulched beds right next door. The Silver Comet's grassy, brushy edges also give them a protected route into town. The result is a lawn full of shallow, cone-shaped holes that wasn't damaged the day before.

Armadillos are frustrating because the usual fixes don't work. Repellents, mothballs and ultrasonic stakes have no effect, and you can't bait an armadillo, since nothing will lure it into a trap. What works is a box trap placed directly on the path the animal uses every night, followed by blocking any burrow under a deck or slab. Here's how a pro handles it.

Why Powder Springs gets more armadillos each year

Armadillos have been moving north through Georgia for years, and they do well in the kind of land at the south-west edge of Cobb: fields, woods and soft ground near water. From there, a neighborhood lawn is an easy food source, because watered turf and mulched beds keep grubs, worms and beetle larvae near the surface. Yards next to open land or the trail usually get hit first, and the digging often follows wet weather when the soil is softest.

Lawn holes versus burrows

The damage comes in two kinds. Feeding holes are the shallow cones and torn-up beds you notice in the morning. They look bad but are only surface damage. Burrows are the bigger concern. Armadillos dig dens under decks, sheds, AC pads, porches and slabs, and as a tunnel gets larger it can weaken what's above it. A burrow under the house is the main reason not to put off dealing with an armadillo.

Skip the repellents and the grub treatment

Most homeowners try home remedies first. Mothballs, castor-oil granules, predator urine and ultrasonic stakes don't keep armadillos away. Pros say mothballs shouldn't be used around a home for any animal problem. Grub treatment seems logical but is generally not recommended. When grubs become scarce, the armadillo digs harder and in more places to find what's left, so the damage gets worse before it improves.

Trapping depends on where the trap goes

Since nothing lures an armadillo, success depends entirely on placement. The pro looks at the yard to find the animal's route: worn paths along a fence, the line it follows from the trail or field edge, the openings of its burrows. Then they set wooden box traps right on that route, usually with boards along the sides to guide it in. The animal walks into the trap while following its normal path. Georgia has no legal restrictions on trapping armadillos, but placement takes experience.

Blocking the burrow afterward

Once the armadillo is caught, its burrow is still there, and another armadillo can move into it. The pro makes sure no young are inside, fills the burrow, and installs buried barrier screening along the edges of decks, sheds and slabs so a new one can't dig back under. On lots that border open land or the trail, that barrier is what keeps the problem from coming back.

When the burrow is under the house

The most urgent calls are burrows under a structure: a porch, deck, AC pad or slab. In soft soil a tunnel can run several feet and wash out the ground underneath. The pro removes the armadillo first, confirms the burrow is empty, then fills and screens it. Watch for new tunnel openings next to the foundation, cracks appearing in a slab or sidewalk, or an AC pad starting to tilt.