Armadillos are native to South America but have since migrated to the United States. Originally settling in the south, armadillos have expanded their range northward as far as Nebraska.
While armadillos are relatively harmless to people, they can be quite a nuisance when they set their sights on your lawn or garden.
You might have heard that vinegar keeps them away, but how to use vinegar to get rid of armadillos?
How Do You Use Vinegar To Get Rid of Armadillos?
To understand how to get rid of pesky armadillos, it’s first important to understand a bit more about their behavior.
Understanding Armadillo Behavior
Armadillos are mostly nocturnal, meaning they’re active and search for food at night. While you may find evidence of an armadillo digging through your garden, they’re usually not after the vegetation itself. Instead, they’re searching for the worms, grubs, and bugs they prefer.
While searching for food, armadillos pull up flowers and other plants and leave sizable, gaping burrows in lawns.
Using Vinegar To Get Rid of Armadillos
While armadillos don’t have a very keen sense of sight, they have an incredible sense of smell — which they use to locate food.
Luckily, homeowners can use this acute sense of smell against them.
Strong, unpleasant scents like vinegar, may be enough to deter armadillos from your property.
How to use vinegar to get rid of armadillos? Simply spray vinegar on your lawn and around flowers and plants. It’s okay to spray vinegar on established grass, but shouldn’t be sprayed directly on seedlings or other plant life.
You’ll need to routinely reapply vinegar for this method to be effective. Every few days and after rain should do the trick.
Alternatively, if the armadillo is only damaging certain parts of your yard, like a garden or flowerbed, leaving small, uncovered bowls of vinegar in the area will be even more effective than spraying.
Is Vinegar an Effective Way To Get Rid of Armadillos?
While vinegar will discourage armadillos from entering your property, it’s not a foolproof solution. Some armadillos will be more stubborn, especially if your yard is the best source of food nearby.
Luckily, armadillos aren’t particularly territorial. While they may lay claim to territory, they mostly go where food is convenient and plentiful.
Like vinegar, other strong scents that armadillos find unpleasant will help repel them. Crushed cloves of garlic and powdered cayenne pepper will also work.
What Other Natural Methods Will Get Rid Of Armadillos?
If a scent deterrent isn’t working, there are other natural methods to get rid of armadillos.
Remove Armadillo Attractants
A good starting point is to remove things from your property that attract them. Dense shrubbery, tall grass, tree stumps, and piles of wood are all places where bugs tend to gather, drawing armadillos to your yard.
Remove fallen and rotting fruits and vegetables as quickly as possible. Even though produce makes up a small portion of an armadillo’s diet, they will certainly be interested in the insects drawn to the fallen fruit.
Install an In-Ground Fence
A fence around the perimeter of the area you wish to protect is the most effective way to deter armadillos.
Make fence slots no wider than an inch or two apart — armadillos can squeeze through tight spaces. They’re also excellent diggers, so the fence will need to be dug 2’ to 3’ underground.
Conclusion
Armadillos can cause unsightly damage to lawns and uproot plants while searching for food. Luckily, keeping them out of your yard is sometimes as simple as using vinegar to repel them. And now you know hot to use vinegar to get rid of armadillos. It’s a cheap and easy solution to a frustrating problem. Vinegar can also be used to repel ants.