Armadillo Removal in Roswell, GA

Armadillos digging up your Roswell yard

Armadillos dig for food, and the soil near Roswell's creeks and in its wooded ravines is about as good as it gets for them. Damp, shaded ground stays soft and keeps grubs, worms and beetle larvae near the surface, so an armadillo wandering up from a creek bank finds an easy meal at the edge of the lawn. The damage appears overnight: a scatter of shallow, cone-shaped holes, mulch kicked out of beds, plants rooted up — some homeowners say it looks as though hogs had been through.

Armadillos are more common in Georgia every year, and most people who call have already tried something from the store. It doesn't work. An armadillo is nearly blind, armored, and driven by instinct, and the repellents sold for it don't change that behavior. What ends the digging is removing the animal itself, using traps placed directly on the paths it already travels, then closing off the burrow and access points it was using. Here's how a Fulton County pro handles it.

Two kinds of damage

The feeding holes and torn-up beds are the obvious damage, and they're mostly cosmetic. The more serious damage is the burrow. Armadillos dig dens, and they like to put them under porches, decks, sheds, AC pads and slabs. On sloped Roswell lots, where soil along a ravine edge can be loose, a tunnel under a structure can grow and undermine it over time. That's the main reason not to let an armadillo settle in near the house.

Why moist creek-side soil attracts them

Armadillos favor soil they can dig easily that's full of food. Ground near Roswell's creeks and in shaded ravine bottoms tends to stay moist, which keeps grubs and worms close to the surface, and the brushy banks offer cover where an armadillo can rest during the day. After rain, prey rises and digging often spikes, which is why the holes tend to appear in bursts. Treating the lawn for grubs is generally not recommended — the armadillo just digs harder to find what's left.

Repellents and home remedies don't work

Mothballs, castor-oil granules, predator urine and ultrasonic stakes are the usual attempts, and none reliably keeps an armadillo away. Mothballs in particular should never be put out for an animal problem. At best a product pushes the armadillo to the next soft patch a few feet over; more often it changes nothing while the holes keep appearing. Each week spent on remedies is another week of damage.

Trapping depends on placement

There's nothing you can reliably bait an armadillo with, so successful trapping is all about where the trap goes. Pros typically use pre-set wooden box traps, placed and screened across the routes the armadillo already uses — along a fence line, at a burrow entrance, or on the path it takes up from the creek bank each night. Placed correctly, the animal walks right in. That removes the specific armadillo causing the damage, and there are no legal restrictions on trapping armadillos in Georgia.

Closing the burrow afterward

Removing the armadillo doesn't remove the burrow it left, and an empty burrow under a porch or deck is an open invitation to the next one. A complete job includes burying barrier screening along the base of decks, porches, sheds and foundations to block re-entry, and advice on clearing back the brush that gives armadillos cover near the lawn. Removal plus that correction is what makes the result last.

When the tunnel runs under the house

The most urgent calls are the ones where the burrow is already under a porch, a slab or the edge of a foundation. The pro removes the armadillo first, checks that no young are still inside, and only then closes the cavity and installs buried exclusion so it can't be reopened. Skipping that check — or closing the burrow before the animal is out — is why digging so often returns to the same spot.