Dorothy,

I am sorry to hear about the armadillo damage. It is so frustrating when they take out or damage anything, but even more so when it is newly planted crops.

We haven't had much dillo damage this year. I think they got in the garden only on one night, and I never figured out how since the gate was closed and I didn't find any spot where they'd dug under the fence. Usually, though, since they cannot get into the garden, they content themselves with digging up the front lawn after it rains. Unless there's been rainfall recently, the lawn area is hard clay and they don't bother digging in it when it is dry.

I like the Logsdon quote and will have to remember it. As often as we have to shoot trouble-making varmints around here, I ought to cross-stitch it on a sampler and hang it on the wall.

Last night we had a darling yard visitor.....the mama doe and her two twin fawns. I like those kinds of visitors.

Our only other visitors lately are bobcats, and we shoot them if we can. Lately they are very bold and don't even run from us....just stand there outside the chicken coop and stare, at least until someone fires that first shot.

Dawn

Sorry to hear about the damage. One of my bean patches is about shot because rabbits have been biting off the vines at ground level. It hurts to see dead pole beans, drying on the poles.

George
Tahlequah, OK

And last night yet another one. I asked DH if he was sure he was killing them, and he said, "Yes, and besides this last one was smaller than the others." That brings the total to 5 dead armadillos here in 3 weeks, counting the very large one that was killed on the county road in front of our driveway.

Dawn, we have hogwire around our garden and Glenn saw one at least squeeze through an opening in the wire. He showed me the stretched out square the next morn.

George, have you tried blood meal and human hair to discourage the rabbits?

Dorothy, We had problem with small animals squeezing through the 2" x 3" openings in our fence! I didn't expect that. So, bit by bit, I went back and wired 1" chicken wire to the bottom 2 feet of fenceline. With 400' of fenceline around the garden, it has taken me forever. I just do a little here and a little there. I still have about 100' to go, but that side of the garden faces the woods, and so far not many critters have come in from that side. They'll more prone to come in from the pasture land to the east or south or from the 'yard' area from the west.

We put up that cheap woven deer fence/netting around Maddie's Garden (it got too hot before we put up the picket fence, so the picket fence is on the fall/winter project list) and it has kept most critters out, but snakes keep getting caught in the 1" openings and usually they're dead by the time we find them stuck in the netting....or they're dead shortly thereafter. I guess it is good the netting is keeping the snakes out of her garden...and the heat is keeping her out of her garden too!

It is so hot today that the grasshoppers have the entire outdoors to themselves!

In the past when we had major armadillo issues, it did always seem like there were several at a time...never just one.

A friend of ours had a 'raccoon' problem once and trapped and shot 1 raccoon per night for 18 consecutive nights, and they still got all his corn before he got all of them. None of us would have guessed he had not 1 or 2 or 3 raccoons, but 18 of them, would we? It was astonishing.

The squirrels, which normally are not a problem for us, are becoming a problem too as it becomes hotter and drier. There's not a fence that keeps them out!

Dawn

No, I need to try the blood meal and human hair thing.
Someone near here once offered coon hunter five dollars a peice to exterminate coon on their place. I hear the fellow killed 60 or 70 over a weekend!

George