I remember the first time I saw an armadillo in OK. My backyard neighbor brought one home from TX. What were they thinking!? Not long after that they were every where and the joke was "Why did the chicken cross the road? To show the armadillo it could be done". For awhile they were common road kill. But I don't recall seeing many up here lately. I doubt my neighbor started a Tulsa population, but it seemed like they surged into North East Oklahoma and then either topped out and the population is smaller or they learned how to cross the highway. Just my observaton. Tomorrow I'll have one in the garden....

AmyinOwasso, Why did the chicken cross the road the 2nd time after showing the Armadillo that it could be done? To prove to the Possum & Coon that it was possible. LOL!

It's probably out in the garden already. Why wait until tomorrow? Our population of them ebbs and flows. Right now it does not seem especially high.

We call them Roadkill on the Half Shell.

I just found where he dug a BIG hole around my new flame grapes!!! I put up some iron grates around them for tonite and we will set up watch. By the time we get everything animal proofed he will have destroyed my most valuable plants. BTW, my blackberries are on the outside of the property fence in the alley so I'll have to figure something out quick. I have a live trap so may try that but shooting him sounds a lot better than the possibility of being sprayed by a skunk. O_O but then again you have to find him to shoot him. I know that's a quick fix, but that's what I need now. I just special ordered the grapes and blackberries in April. My hubby built me a grape arbor. I thought he would just throw up some pipe and hog pen wire but no, he really outdid himself. I think it's BEAUTIFUL. The other pic is my Navaho's on the back fence. As you can see the place is a mess but I couldn't see planting a full garden when we had so much construction going on. The back fence you can see where hubby made me a tall fence for vertical gardening. Half of it is in tomatoes and the other half cucumbers. On the honey do list is raised beds :)

Oh yeah. I'm clickin' wid ya. I'm seeing a wall of veggies. um hum... Yep. I'm so tired of skunks, coons, possum, rabbits and whatever else. sigh.. It's MY food dang it!

They say when you plant a garden always plant enough for you, the neighbors and the wildlife but I refuse to feed an armadillo!!

The eat beetles, grubs and worms, which would make them beneficial to have around if they weren't digging up your plants. We ignore them when they're in the yard or anywhere else on the property, and the fence generally keeps them out of the garden. When one rambles into the garden through the open gate, I just escort it back out and then close the gate. They have such poor eyesight you can almost step on them before they finally realize you are there.

Since most of the garden is raised beds and the hapless armadillos probably can't see anything but the lumber sides of the raised beds, in my garden nowadays they mostly roam around the pathways digging in the mulch. There's never been a repeat of the plant massacre. Still, I don't let them stay if they come into the garden---I have not forgotten the horror of the Mother's Day Massacre and never will. They dug up the entire garden and ruined it in a way that deer, rabbits, voles and grasshoppers never have. It was total destruction.

And in good (or bad) garden critter news, when I went out to the garden to make sure no chickens or rabbits (or armadillos, possums or deer) were in it and to close the gate for the night, I was met near the gate by a decent-sized copperhead. We harvested it.

I don't understand why the snakes come to the gate as most of them could slide right through some parts of the woven wire fencing, but they do. There is some bird netting to the left of the entry arbor and they usually get hung up in it, which probably helps me avoid being bitten. I always take a good look at that bird netting before I go through the garden gate, and it is a good thing that I do. Even after years of snake encounters, I still jump back when I see one.

The snakes can roam at will all over our property and we won't bother them, but if they are foolish enough to be in or near the garden, the yard around the house, the greenhouse, garage, poultry coops or chicken runs, we don't put up with that. It is just too dangerous. This spring we have almost no possums, coons, skunks or armadillos, but our driveway is a copperhead highway and my garden gate attracts them like a magnet.

Just went on my first patrol and headed down the alley. Guess what I ran into that was running straight for me? Yeah that's right, a skunk. I kicked it into high gear in reverse and when I looked back the skunk was headed the other way. That was better than a cup of coffee as far as waking up. lol

That would wake my behind up, too! I won't go out at night for fear of being sprayed by a skunk. It's obvious they're around when something else startles them. The more I work the yard into a garden, the worse the wildlife hang out.

We were visited by a racoon with distemper, once. Freaked me right out until I saw that he was harmless. (Dogs are Okay!) He stole our hearts in an hour. So sad we had to put him down after we got to know the little guy, but he was quite sick. We didn't use a gun and let me too you, that would have been so much easier. Dad gum it. Since then, the police told us to just give them a call so they can expect the gun shot (or have someone come out and supervise or do it for us.) City doesn't have license to handle these. Frustrating that we're in a city but are required to handle country affairs lolz

Saw a booooootiful tarantula, today. Always glad to see them!!

bon

The sun is coming up now and believe it or not I am making it with 2 1/2 hrs of sleep. Hubby watched for Army in that time. I saw a young opposum last nite and just a while ago I saw him go in between two buildings and disappear in a hole I didn't know was there. I'm not worried about him. Didn't see my coon but I know he's around. Besides those just a rabbit and cat.

Donna, As skunk encounters go, that was not a bad one. A couple of years ago I rounded the corner of our detached garage one day and saw a skunk walking toward me. It was mid-morning, so it was immediately suspect. Must have been rabid. Ran at me like it was possessed by the devil. I ran for the house as fast as I could. It was nice to know I could outrun a skunk. That wasn't my most recent skunk encounter, but it was my most unforgettable one.

Maybe the skunk is your digger. They dig up our yards worse than the armadillos do.

Dawn

Just incase anybody happens to catch a skunk if it is in an enclosed type of container it wont spray it's stink, but will if out in the open. They apparently don't like the stink any more than we do. Beware of skunks out in the daytime.

I thought of that Dawn but there are several places where he had dug, one being the back yard and it smacks of an armidillo. Pretty sure that's what it is.

Has anyone ever heard an Armadillo while rooting through litter? They make a sound just like a small pig. I used to know a Mexican that made chili out of them. According to him it taste good, I don't know. Use to be people would render skunks down and use the grease for chest rub for colds during the winter. I'll bet it would open up a stopped up nose.

Ha, ha, ha, ha...and my kids thought Vicks was bad!

lolz Man o man. I wonder who that first person was.

Hey ma? May we should rub some skunk goop on his chest?

I had to laugh at the skunk and raccoon conversations. Spot on!

Armadillos carry leprosy and a lot of really poor mexicans eat them. I won't touch them

Skunk digging and armadillo digging are almost identical, although if it is a skunk, sometimes there is a faint lingering trace of his or her.....unique aroma.

We automatically assume any skunk out in the daylight hours is rabid and shoot it. We've had them out in broad daylight wandering around looking obviously ill, and shooting them in that case puts them out of their misery. We've had them out in broad daylight throwing themselves against the fence around our dog yard and chicken runs trying to get to our animals--in that case shooting the skunk protects our animals and, in turn, us. We've had them chase adults in broad daylight. If the scared adult can get into the house, get a gun and get back outside before the skunk disappears, we shoot it. We also shoot them if they get into the chicken coop while the door is open because the chickens are free-ranging. There is no good reason to tolerate a skunk on your property if it is out in the daylight hours or attempting to harm a person or their animals.

When I'm out walking our dogs on their leashes, we run into skunks much too often and usually just turn around and head home to avoid getting too close to them. We've only been skunked once, and it happene to two of our dogs in th early 2000s, and the two boys (my son and his cousin) who were trying to catch up with the dogs and drag them away from mama skunk and her four little baby skunks. Tim was on his way home from work at the time, so I called him and asked him to pick up Lemon Joy, hydrogen peroxise and baking soda at the store. When he was in line paying for it, everyone was smiling knowingly and saying "we know why you're buying that...". He thought it was pretty funny.

We had both skunks and armadillos digging at night in early June after we had plentiful rainfall. As the ground dried up, they moved on someplace else. I don't miss them at all. Tim and Chris both leave for work in the very early morning hours while it still is very dark. They see tons of wildlife out at that hour.

I've always wondered what to do if I got sprayed. Wouldn't the smell get all over your house when you went in? Even if you washed up the best you could outside and threw away your clothes the smell would still be on you. It's good to know Lemon Joy, peroxide and baking soda will work. The only thing I've heard of is tomato juice. I'm retired now but I did work in a prison and I would think of if I got sprayed by a skunk that I would walk around among them. Payback LOLOLOL

The reason the skunk formula works is that there is some sort of chemical reaction between the hydrogen peroxide and baking soda that helps neutralize the smell. It sometimes takes several baths with the stuff (and I think mostly the Lemon Joy helps the formula adhere to you, the animals or your clothing long enough to work) to get rid of the lingering smell, but it works much better than anything else we've tried, including tomato juice (which will dye a white dog pink and increase its humiliation by making it both stinky and pink). You don't go into your house until you've done everything in your power to get the smell off of you or your house will smell like skunk for weeks. I found the skunk recipe in a country living type magazine (I think it was in Harrowsmith) in the 1990s, clipped it and held on to it for years before we even moved here. I knew it would come in handy someday, and it did.

You keep a skunk kit in an outbuilding like a garage (hopefully one that is detached from the house so the smell doesn't travel through the garage and into the house) or a garden shed or something and use it plus the garden hose to clean yourself off. A skunk kit should contain, at the very least, large quantities of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, Lemon Joy (probably any other soap detergent would work as well, but the guy who came up with the formula that I found in the magazine article in the 1990s preferred Lemon Joy so that's what we have in our kit), a bucket in which to mix it all together, a couple of towels, a couple of washcloths, and.....if you have properly planned ahead, maybe a couple of XL T-shirts and some elastic-waist shorts that any family member could put on so that they can leave their clothing outdoors. Having a spare dog leash in the kit helps so that you can keep the dog where you need him or her while you bathe them. Our dogs run in circles and fall on the ground and try to rub off the skunk smell, so without a leash, getting them deskunked is a battle. Sandals like flip flops can replace your stinky shoes. A ziplock bag stuffed with nitrile or latex medical gloves comes in handy if a skunk odor-free human is having to wash a skunked dog. The last thing you want to do is transfer that stinky smell to yourself.

I have found it much easier to get the odor of skunk off people and pets than out of clothes and shoes, despite repeated washing with everything under the sun that might neutralize the smell, so we quit trying to save skunked clothing. Generally if someone takes a good hit of skunk, we just throw away their clothing and shoes because you just can't get the smell out of them.

We even try to be careful about where we shoot a skunk because most of the time the skunk will release its scent upon being shot, and the scent will linger on the ground and in the air for weeks to sometimes months, so it is better to track a rabid skunk and shoot it some distance away from the house and garden if that is an option. (With a rabid skunk trying to attack a person or pet, you usually don't have that luxury though.)

We haven't had too much trouble with being skunked, but I know people who once had a skunk get into their house, and met another family during a wildfire at their place whose dog had trapped and killed a skunk under their house. They told me that despite all their efforts to use every method found on the internet, their home still smelled strongly of skunk a couple of months later. I guess the scent traveled up through the floorboards (and I cannot imagine anything worse). The dog, who was a pit bull who "greeted" me when I got out of the fire tanker, didn't smell that strongly of skunk anymore, but they said their whole house still did.

Here's the formula, which I am sure exists in a million different pages on the internet:

Skunk Remedy

that is invaluable information Dawn! Thank you so much

Ahh, the smell will wear off eventually. You will get used to it. Maybe no one else will but you will.

Donna Dot, You're welcome.

autheray, It sure can take a long time to wear off. I don't mind being unforgettable, but I sure don't want the reason for that to be that I smell like Pepe LePew.

I think I've came up with a solution to my armadillo problem. I had some 4' 2"x4" wire that I cut into squares with a hole in the middle for the blackberry plants and put it around them. Then I put my soaker hose and mulch back on top. Hopefully he will not be able to dig around the plants now.