Posts Tagged ‘armadillo’
The continuing adventures of armadillos
Tonights (non) adventure with Armadillos
Just like last night, we built a small fire in our small bonfire ring which is set on the hump left after the old barn burned down. It’s out in the yard, and next to where I usually will see the armadillos walking by. (We’ve had them come sniff around our legs out there when we were quiet and still and the fire was burning down to coals)
Last night we had our backs to the house. We kept checking every so often around us with lights, but never saw an armadillo.
Tonight, because the wind was in a different direction, we had to sit on the other side. Guess what I spotted out by my car? Yep, an armadillo. So I get the light, Ron gets his gun… and we can’t scare the armadillo out from under my car! Then when it does get out, it is basically standing between Ron’s feet. Seriously, armadillos are sort of immune to their surroundings unless it seems threatening. That almost on Ron’s feet was the best shot he had… all of a sudden the cats decided to help. Armadillo started waddling away, next best shot had too many cats too close. We thought we’d head it off around the storm cellar, but it must have started going at a good clip, because when we got around the cellar there was no armadillo.
Mr Armadillo lives for another day. Ron thinks we may have scared it enough it wouldn’t be back tonight, but I’m not betting on that. We have armadillo burrows all over the place around the property. The one that is braving the cats is NOT the only one. It’s just the one we have been seeing.
I don’t know how much people know about armadillos… I know quite a bit, because I had to find out. Armadillos have no real teeth… they have stumps of bone that are like molars, that’s it. They have babies, live birth as they are mammals… and the babies are always in 4′s and all the same sex. Oh, and baby armadillos are SOFT, not hard shelled. The shells on armadillos are not a shell like a turtle. The shell is more like hair that turns hard, not a true shell. Their bellies stay furry. And there are lots of different kinds of armadillos, but we only really see one kind in the USA… which have been moving steadily north for the last 100 years.
Sometime last year I figured out that the burrow under the blackberries had armadillos… and babies. I’d read that strong smells would make them leave the burrow. I SO wanted to see armadillo babies. I had some ammonia water from cleaning and I had Ron carry the bucket down and pour it down. Nothing happened. They may have had another exit… Armadillo burrows can go as deep as 7 feet underground. And I don’t know how long, or if they are like rabbits with an escape exit. What clued me to the babies was… hundreds of little digging holes right around that burrow. When food is plenty, armadillos just dig a hole here and there, a small cone shaped hole to get what they want. Babies? Well, it was like walking thru a mini mine field, all these tiny diggings. I was very disappointed when I didn’t get to make them come out to see me. (pay backs, now they are all rooting around the house!)
When food is not so plentiful armadillos dig like crazy. The yard is starting to look like someone is coming in at nights with a small rototiller. All around the foundations of the house, around the water hose area, around where the heat pump spits water out… rototiller work. Oh, and around the tree wher we had a sprinkler going the other day to try it out. We don’t water lawns here… while we appreciate green grass, it’s a lot of work to keep it mowed. Just as well… if we were watering I’m sure the armadillos would just be digging up more of the yard.
Could be worse I guess. They haven’t been getting my flowers that much, just the one flower box. And staying away from veggies, but that is probably because the veggies are surrounded with black plastic. But before I’d moved here with Ron, the only armadillos I’d ever seen were on the road, and usually dead. Now I see em all the time. Heck, even a close up visit the other night, poking that one. (yes, that was a bit crazy, even for me)
