I’m a night creature. I swear in another life I must have been an owl or a bat. Every night, unless the weather is really nasty, I go outside with a flashlight to see what I can see or hear what I can hear. I learn so much and have great adventures. I’ve had many adventures with Nine-banded armadillos, but one stands out from all the others. Here’s what happened:

I went out as usual one summer evening a couple of years ago. I was planning to have a whiff of some Moonvine I’d planted. When I got out to my garden I heard grunting. I had to check it out.

I got right over her and said, “Hey, ‘Dillo, why don’t you scoot out to the back pasture where you won’t make anyone upset with all that digging?”

She ignored me.

I got closer and said very sternly and loudly, “Hey, You! Go away! Scoot! Skedaddle on out of here!”

She continued to ignore me.

Then, brave chick that I am, I got right over her and pointed that flashlight on the ground in front of her funny little face (they have awful eyesight), and gave a good holler, but I’m not telling what I said at that point in the evening. She lifted her head, gave a sniff, and went back to digging. So, I squatted down right over her and put my hand on her back. I was laughing so hard that I guess I was “jiggling” and let me tell you, she was paying attention then! Do you know what armadillos do when they’re really afraid and upset? Well, they jump straight up so they can knock the fire out of whatever predator is upon them, thereby giving them an opportunity to make a quick get-away.

Guess who had to spend the next 30 minutes with an icepack on her face? Uh, huh, that would be me. That armadillo was back by the time I got the swelling to go down on my lips and chin. You do not want to molest an armadillo! Unfortunately, when armadillos are out on roads after dark they employ the same jump-straight-up-strategy when an automobile is right over them. You’ve probably seen the results of this a time or two.

You might be thinking that after my encounter I dislike armadillos. You’d be incorrect. I love armadillos! They are such cool animals. I even met one at the Fort Worth Zoo that behaved like a dog (don’t go getting any ideas! You’ve got to have special state permits to possess wild animals in Texas). That armadillo loved to have its tummy rubbed and would curl up and sleep in the zookeeper's lap. It was so endearing. I have a friend who had visitors from Russia last year. They stayed at my friend’s home in Fairview and got to observe the “little pigs” in her yard. They were thrilled as they’d never seen anything like an armadillo before. Imagine trying to describe an armadillo for the first time!

I receive a lot of calls about armadillos, though. Folks around here don’t much care for them. This could be because many people go to a lot of expense to have a nice landscape, and the armadillos just don’t want to cooperate. It is maddening, and I have the same issue at my home. I’ve been trying for years to have flower gardens! Not gonna happen.

I’ve made up my mind that major gardening is not in the cards for me because, as said I stated earlier, I like armadillos. So, I’ve decided that I will work diligently at one garden area and leave the rest for the animals. My home is built right on top of their homes, after all.

Armadillos may be expert diggers but they don’t have wire-cutters on those hard, sharp toenails of theirs. If you find you can’t adapt to armadillos around the garden, try making a “barrier” with chicken wire or hardware cloth. You need to run the barrier wire under the soil and make holes in it for the plants to grow, but it’s pretty effective. Another deterrent that’s worked well for me is to “pepper” the flower garden soil with fine ground black pepper. I’ve tried every other kind of pepper, but regular table pepper is the only one that’s been at all effective. You can purchase it in large containers at Sam’s Club or Costco. Armadillos make their way through life by using their extremely sensitive noses to guide them, and the black pepper is irritating to their nasal passages. Armadillos can smell grub worms (I appreciate that they eat those plant-killing little pests), and other gourmet arthropods, even if the grubs are several inches under the soil. You do, however, have to re-pepper your garden after it rains. The pepper needs to stay in a sniff-able state. Good thing pepper isn’t very expensive! And remember, stand up wind or you’ll get a nose-full yourself.

• Armadillos are fine swimmers! They can even fill their digestive tract with air to increase buoyancy for swimming longer distances.
• Female armadillos can experience delayed implantation of the blastocyst (fertilized egg) for up to fourteen months. This enables female armadillos to successfully bear more offspring as they can wait for better environmental conditions before beginning their pregnancies.
• They always give birth to identical quadruplets.
• Armadillos are sensitive to long periods of cold weather. Prolonged periods of cold can eliminate armadillos from an area.
• Close relatives of armadillos include sloths and anteaters.
• They follow water ways, like rivers, in their search for new territory.
• Armadillos are one of the only animals that will take on and consume Fire ants. This is a big plus in my book!

If you try trapping and removing armadillos, you’ll just get more of them. As long as the habitat stays the same, more armadillos will end up moving in. You must change the habitat and that means eliminating food, water, shelter or space. Poisoning the critters that armadillos eat doesn’t make sense either. Our children and grandchildren will end up eating and drinking the pesticides we use today! So, unless we reverse global warming I’d say that armadillos are here to stay and are going to be moving further north. We humans are going to have to adapt and be more understanding of all the wildlife that shares space with us, including the “little pigs.”