Can you flush an armadillo out with water?

If you've already done your research on armadillos to make your removal job an easier one, you'll know that it's an animal that lives underground, in burrows, and mostly comes out during the night. These are vital pieces of information for ensuring you take the right approach, and we'd like to discuss an approach that is NOT a good idea …

Flooding the burrow seems to be a removal approach recommended on the internet for a wide range of wild and pest critters, but there are some pretty big reasons why it's not an approach that you should consider using.


1 – You might drown the animal.

Armadillos sleep for as many as 16-18 hours a day, and if you fill the burrow with water during that time, the animal might not wake up in time to save itself. Stuck in the burrow with water coming in fast, the armadillo has nowhere to go, can't dig itself out fast enough, and will likely die.


2 – The animal will decompose underground

And will in turn, attract other pest animals, particularly scavengers. Raccoons, rats, skunks, opossums, wolves, coyotes, foxes … The list of animals in North America that will dig up the garden to get to a tasty meal is long, and you can even add household pets to it. If you thought the cat was bad enough for killing and bringing into the home a mouse or a bird, wait until it has successfully dug up a dead armadillo that drowned in its burrow, and then places that at your feet.

Unpleasant to say the least.


3 – You might flood your own land

Whether you kill the armadillo or successfully "flush" it out, you're pouring water into a hole in the ground, under your property. That water could flood your basement if the burrow gets close enough, and the displacement of earth plus the addition of water could lead to serious structural problems for buildings overground.

Even when there are no buildings on top of the land, there could still be problems. If you have holes underground that are then softened and made less sturdy with moving water (the water you pour down there), the effect could be like a sinkhole on a smaller scale. When someone or something walks on top of the unstable ground, it could collapse and fall through onto itself, causing the person or animal on top to fall down. This exact problem has led to euthanized horses and cattle due to broken legs or ankles.


4 – There's no guarantee you'll get rid of the armadillo at all

Have you displaced that armadillo? How do you know? Is it dead? Again, how do you know? You won't know, and unless you go digging around in the earth or wait for more armadillo signs, you don't find out the answer. You can't be sure that all that water will have worked, in one way or another.



Go back to the armadillocontrol.com home page.