Saturday, July 30, 2011

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

There's an intruder in my garden!

Some people think he's good.  Some people think he's ugly.  I consider him just plain bad!


The good?  

Well, he's great at ridding your garden of slugs.   Nell Jean says he'll eat fire ants!  And some people say he tastes like pork.  Yum?  Well, I don't know about that, but he does seem to be a favorite with the vultures, baked in his own shell.  People in many areas of Central and South America eat armadillo, and during the Depression here, they were often used as food.


The ugly?  

Just take a look.  I rest my case.


The bad?  

He not only eats ants, but he'll also eat your earthworms!  I don't have enough of those as it is!

Plus - 

He roots up plants.  I have a hard enough time getting things to grow without him digging up plants when my back is turned!


Plus - 

He makes holes, and I have tripped many times just walking along unaware that he had set a trap.  A tripping trap!  Sprained ankles are not fun!


So, since I'm not going to eat his porky-tasting flesh, I wish to keep all my earthworms, I don't like holes in the yard, and I don't like re-planting my plants over and over,  I find him to be a nuisance.

Pure evil.


Well, not pure evil.  More like misunderstood.  The nine-banded armadillo is the only type of armadillo we have here.  In researching this particular armadillo, I found:  The nine-banded armadillo is a mammal and almost always gives birth to four identical quadruplets!  The poor thing doesn't have a very good immune system, and so he is used for a lot of medical research, especially research on leprosy.  In fact, wild armadillos can have leprosy, which can be transmitted if eaten undercooked.  They have extremely poor eyesight.  He is very vulnerable to cold weather, and prolonged cold can kill him.  The nine-banded armadillo is just one of several species of armadillo, some of which are now endangered.

Almost makes me feel a bit sorry for him.

Almost.

But not quite.

Do you have this intruder in your garden?

27 comments:

  1. Hi Holley,
    Fortunately, there are too many streets to cross for him to get to my urban garden. Hang in there!
    I do have other animals that keep me on my toes.
    David :-)

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  2. ate mine for breakfast with a lonestar.

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  3. When I lived in Florida I always liked seeing armadillos, but I wasn't a gardener at the time. Finding your plants rooted up is just plain wrong! Still, anything that can take on a nest of fire ants has my respect.

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  4. I could do nearly the same post on rabbits! When I was a child, I thought bunnies were sweet and innocent. When I started growing my own garden, I realized they are pure evil. Well, they aren't good and they aren't ugly, but they are bad!

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  5. Oh, for once I'm glad I live in a very cold climate! Yuck, I wouldn't want one of these guys rampaging through my gardens. I know there is good in every varmint, but why can't the varmints stay in the woods or the swamp or wherever else they inhabit? The closest thing to your armadillo we have is the opossum, and they are a pain, too, getting into cat food and killing chickens. Then there are the woodchucks, digging holes everywhere and multiplying like flies along with the skunks who like to dig up stuff all over, too. One dug under our garage last summer and took out an entire wheelbarrow load of sand, got startled by our cat and sprayed all over the car in the garage. Are we having fun yet?

    Still, I'm glad I don't have any armadillos to contend with, lol.

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  6. Moles....or I think they are moles...and you know the pictures on the internet don't show you the real size of a mole.... but it is time for the fall veggie garden to go in and I have to keep the moles out of that section.... wish me luck.....

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  7. Oh man he is ugly, you are right. I am having fits over the stupid rabbits out front. They've eaten I believe it's 8 plants out front now.
    Cher Sunray Gardens

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  8. No armadillos in Virginia yet. We do have deer that eat the tops of my roses, rabbits that eat at the bottom, foxes and coyotes that eat the rabbits, and now BEARS are here. I'm glad that armadillos aren't on that list. (These are some great photos of the little booger!)

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  9. I've never seen an armadillo and not sure I want one visiting my garden.

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  10. Phew, glad they don't call around this way. Too cold, only pest is the slugs.

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  11. David - I guess living in the city does have its advantages! I thought the dog might bark at it, but my dog doesn't seem to be bothered by anything!

    greggo - haha Now I know not to come to any of your barbecues!

    Stacy - I wouldn't mind him if he didn't come into the flower beds. I was surprised to find he'd eat fire ants - I didn't know they had any enemy, and was glad to learn it. Maybe that's why I don't see as many fire ants as I used to!

    PlantPostings - I think my cats keep my garden clear of any bunnies. Which, from what I read, is a good thing!

    Karen - I bet your car smelled for quite some time! We do have opossums here, and they are frustrating, but I don't think they do much damage to the garden. No woodchucks here, and not a lot of skunks, thankfully. It could get tricky to try and scare off a skunk!

    Mimi - Moles are frustrating. They can do a lot of damage before there are any signs of them. At least with an armadillo, you know immediately you've got one!

    Cher - Trap him and eat him! I do love rabbit dumplings! ;)

    Connie - I'm glad we don't have bears!!!!

    Crafty Gardener - Maybe we will have a very cold winter and push them back a bit! They used to be just a Texas oddity, but they are spreading fast into other areas.

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  12. Alistair - Your only pest is the slug??? Lucky you!

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  13. Armadillo - definitely a garden pest. I've seen them dig up everything in gardens in Florida.

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  14. No Armadillos in the Pacific Northwest, I'm sad [not] to say. They're kinda cute in an ugly sorta way, you know? I think if I had to deal with them like you do, I'd be a lot less patient than you appear to be. I hope you can figure out a way to keep them out of your garden BEFORE you break your ankle.

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  15. Kelli - Yes, they are quite destructive. The little ones are so cute, but I know they just grow up to be bad big ones!

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  16. Grace - It's not fun to be walking along a path, then have half your foot sink in a hole you didn't know was there! It certainly makes me slow down!

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  17. Thankfully no! I don't have that intruder. I have enough of my own and its too cold for that armadillo here.

    Latest evidence of an intruder was the red roses on the knockout rose were gone. Nipped off by deer I bet. It's that time of month - time for liquid fence application again. On the list for this week.

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  18. Marcia - Deer are much bigger and can do more damage in a shorter amount of time! It's funny, we have deer here (they raid the vegetable garden), but they don't seem to really bother my flower gardens too much. I hope it stays that way!

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  19. Yes I did have one at my previous house. If you visited my blog and saw the rock bench I made, I had an armadillo burrow down about a foot and a half under the bench. It made a home out of it. It also dug up the whole front yard. I finally filled the hole in with rocks, but it still came every night and continued digging up the yard. We had the worst looking grass on the block for awhile. Then one day it just disappeared BUT it came back the next year. They love grubs. Our house was on the corner and we had a street lamp in the yard which attracted June bugs - grubs. They said the only way we could get rid of it was to trap it. I feel for you.

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  20. Dear Holley, Sorry about your visitor! No armadillos here, but I have a skunk living under the old pear tree. He is eating the roots, so the tree is doomed. He also makes holes digging for grubs. And he stinks! P.

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  21. Cottage Dome - We have one trying to burrow under the house. We keep filling up the hole, he keeps digging it out. Very frustrating. I agree they are attracted to grubs. Where he is trying to dig under the house has a light that comes on at night - and yes, it's june bug city there!

    Pam - A skunk is worse! At least armadillos don't spray!

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  22. Oh, yes, we've got 'em, too. My husband was mowing the yard one time, came around the corner, and there were six of them scurrying away. And I did learn at a master gardener meeting that they give birth to 4 all males or all females. Interesting. Possums...did you know they can't carry rabies because their body temperature is so low...only 94 degrees. We put chicken wire around our deck this year and that has helped tremendously with the critters living under our deck. We used to have coons living under there along with the armadillos and possums -- regular ol' wildlife habitat going on down there. I am amazed at the close-up pictures you got of the armadillo. I can't believe it did not run away!

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  23. Toni - I didn't realize that with possoms. Interesting. We have tons of raccoons, too. :( They are very bold, and my granddaughter calls them "the monster" because we always tell her to be careful opening the door to the garage, as they get in there regularly.

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  24. I don't have armadillos in my garden but I used to see them all the time when I lived in FL. After reading what you wrote about them I almost feel sorry for them too, but they can go destroy someone else's garden!

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  25. Bumble Lush - Yes, I would like them a lot more if they would stay out of the garden!

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  26. I used to see lots of armadillos when I lived in Louisiana, but none in New Mexico. Your post reminded me of the scene from Steel Magnolias with the red velvet cake shaped like an armadillo.

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  27. Girl Sprout - I'm not sure if armadillos have gone as far west as New Mexico yet. haha - I wouldn't have thought of that cake if you hadn't mentioned it!

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