Help with how to keep armadillo’s out of a garden??

Question

I don’t want to kill them - don’t want to hurt them at all really. Just that I have this little baby armadillo that seems to LOVE eating my tomatoes and is not willing to share my crop with me and thinks that he should be able to eat them all.

I have chased him off more than once - but the little thing just keep coming back!

The fence doesn’t seem to stop it - it digs under it and gets in.

Never have had a problem like this before - and my neighbors think that it is ‘cute’ - which I don’t disagree that it is cute - just not when it is eating my tomatoes!

Answer 1

I have two ways that I have dealt with armadillos.  They can destroy a garden or flowerbed very quickly as they're vigorous and enthusiastic diggers.

Cayenne pepper (finely-crushed red pepper, available at grocery stores) tastes bad to armadillos.  You probably shouldn't sprinkle it directly on your tomatoes, but putting it on the leaves and around the plant may help.  The armadillo should get a hot (harmless) snootful and hopefully move on.

My permanent solution was to bury chicken wire one foot deep under all my fencing.  Since my yard is almost 1 acre, it was an obnoxious dirty sweaty job.  I folded over the chicken wire for a double layer and attached the top of it to the botton of the exising chainlink fence.  This stops armadillos from digging under the fence to get in, and it stops my dog from digging under the fence to get out.

I bought the chicken wire in a big roll from Lowe's.

Since I finished the chicken wire, I see evidence of armadillos in the wooded area behind my property, and I see evidence of them trying to dig into my yard and failing.

Answer 2

There is no magic spray or powder or anything else to keep away armadillos. If you have an armadillo problem and you wish to get rid of them, they should be physically trapped and removed from the habitat. Either that, or physical barriers, such as fences (that go at least a foot underground) should be put in place as a means of armadillo preventionThere is no magic scent or smell or chemical or poison that will deter them. The internet is full of armadillo deterrent products, but none of them work. Some of these products include fox or coyote urine, which is a nice idea in theory, but it isn't effective. Other products are simply made of napthalene - moth balls - which some companies sell as an end-all be-all in wildlife repellant. Sorry, it simply doesn't work. I've seen people dump a whole 5 lb. box of mothballs down a dillo hole, and the armadillos don't care in the slightest. They keep using the burrow, and kick the mothballs out over time as they dig deeper. Other people try to repel armadillos with castor oil based sprays and liquids. The idea is that the castor oil makes the ground taste bad, or it makes the worms and grubs in the ground unpleasant to eat, and this drives the armadillos away. Again, such products don't work in the slightest.   put up a electric fence aroound the garden ?