HELP!! Armadillos!!

They have to go!     This is my first experience with these little armored hole diggers and I don't like them one bit.  

They are  digging under the wall of our hoop house. Three tunnels into it this summer alone.
Digging into every spot we ground a stump. Early in the spring hubby ground off over 100 stumps.
Digging randomly in the yard. Five holes between the house and parking area.
Now I find holes dug in the broccoli and cauliflower garden.

From what I read they are after grubs, bugs, and worms.  I want to be friendly to the beneficial critters and I don't want some random chemical in my soil.  What else works?

OhioGardener wrote:
Local people claimed that they don't like the smell of pine, and if you spray the ground with a Pine-Sol solution they won't go near it. But, my experience was that if there was a grub to be found, they don't care what the ground smells like.

Careful with store-purchase Pine-Sol because they don't use real pine oil.  Their website claims you can buy the original.
"Q: Is the old formula of Pine-Sol Pine still available?  
  A: We will be selling the old formula of Pine-Sol Pine directly to consumers at PineSolOriginalPine.com."

OG, we have been in this county since 2003 and they were here already as evidenced by road killed ones.  I have been in north MO on US 36 between Chillicothe and Macon and saw them killed on the highway there about 12 years ago.  Guess I have been lucky not to have been bothered by them before.

As for the smell of pine, in Texas Co, MO I saw my first actual live armadillo eating grubs in a pine forest in 1997.  A logging crew had worked there during the week and on the weekend we gathered tree top branches for making rustic pine crafts.  

Probably just have to live with the darn things.  We have 6 acres so it wouldn't be feasible to fence the entire place in the necessary way.  

I know chickens and guineas would help reduce the grub population.  We have 7 chickens but they aren't free range due to the eagles and hawks.  Moved here 13 months ago with 17 chickens.  Only 2 died of other causes.  May have to look into getting some of the predator wary breeds and just let them run.  If the food supply, grubs etc, isn't there maybe they will move on.

We will be making TT throughout the winter.  Some for the hoop house and some for outside.  That means that the existing "soil" in the hoop house will be removed.  Maybe that will stop them from digging under there.  I had thought about leaving it and doing double-decker planting.  That might not be wise under the circumstances. 


There is so much to do when you move onto a new-to-you property.