Varmit weapon

[tjm]

2 hours ago, MOPanfisher said:

Friend of mine traps them using a couple of long boards to make wings to direct them into a trap and baits it with applesauce, seems to work fairly well for him. 

 1x6x12' board wings will divert them into any double door box trap (probably even a single door wire box from the farm store) if the traps wood it will hold their odor after a couple of uses, (think they dribble a trail like mice do, maybe) after you've caught a few the smell alone will catch more, no wing boards needed, it you have a wire box trap put a towel, a plywood, a rug or .. under the cage or in the floor to absorb that odor and you be in business. Professional pest control people will do this for you for a few dollars more.

Or take a 10 minute walk with the bird gun of choice and any flash light about 7-11 pm on any moderately warm night.(40F) The light is so you can see to walk the shooting is point and pull at 10 yards. #6 is big enough . They really are more fragile than they look we used to have a Border Collie that laid them out in a row by my truck so that I would see them in the morning first thing, lots of times 2 or 3 and quite few times as many as 6 in a row laid out for me to haul off. Little dog probably weighed 30# and killed tons of hardshell southern possums.

[Dutch]

Guys I am not interested in trapping.  I don't need any new pets.  We have 12 ga, 20 ga, and 410 shot guns but there will be no night work too many cattle scattered around.   I want to extinguish their little fire and let the eagles eat them until spring then the buzzards will be back and can take over.

I just had a Ruger 10/22 offered on loan.  I think we will start out with it and see how it goes.

I kind of need to go on the cheap for a while as I am looking at some serious trolling motor chart plotter upgrades soon.

Thanks for all of the replies.

[Devan S.]

I have spent a many nights driving around cattle fields as a teenager. Hit'em with the headlights while there digging, 3 or 4 guys bail out of the truck run them down kick them, hit them with axes, and ball bats.  That's why there are tons hit on the highway every night. At some point in my life, it got easier to ride around and shotgun them or run them down in the truck. I will warn you as a young dumb teenager the first time you go to kick one and it jumps is quite alarming.

I cannot imagine any situation where you would need any shot over 30 yards and that is probably stretching it. 22, 20 ga, or 410 will work just fine. Your certainly not going to get rid of 100% of them in one or 2 nights so don't take shots your not comfortable with and certainly don't shoot into locations where cows are obviously in the background. 

Another option is to feed the cows right at dusk so your concentrating them in one location in the field around hay/grain whatever. That should drastically reduce your amount of area of concern. 

[jdmidwest]

Don''t know about the kicking part.  I have been told they will spray runny diarrehea when alarmed as a defense response.

[MOPanfisher]

A piece of pipe or aluminum bat will work too.  Kicking them hurt your foot, back and knees.  And they heavier than they appear.  No not hard to kill, but they will often run off when shot, which is not a bad thing.  Not sure but what I wouldn't rather have a shotgun at night especially among cows, but the .22 will work just fine.  Trapping them has never created any pets I know of, you have to give them a long baptism, like 10 minutes in a pond still in the trap and they calm right down.  Most of the ones I have eliminated have been targets of opportunity, arrow, deer rifles, club etc.  Whatever is available will work, though I no longer am interested in chasing them on foot.  Back when I had beagles they would occasionally chase them, but weren't quite sure what to do about them.

[Terrierman]

I've killed dozens and dozens of armadillos, with the terriers and without.  Never seen diarrhea as a defense mechanism.  They do jump impressively and think that has something to do with all the road kills, jumping up just in time to get hit.  They are not hard to kill.  I'm 66 and won't be running any of them down.

3 hours ago, Dutch said:

Guys I am not interested in trapping.  I don't need any new pets.  We have 12 ga, 20 ga, and 410 shot guns but there will be no night work too many cattle scattered around.   I want to extinguish their little fire and let the eagles eat them until spring then the buzzards will be back and can take over.

I just had a Ruger 10/22 offered on loan.  I think we will start out with it and see how it goes.

I kind of need to go on the cheap for a while as I am looking at some serious trolling motor chart plotter upgrades soon.

Thanks for all of the replies.

It's hard to get cheaper than a loaner.  10/22 will work fine.

[tjm]

12 minutes ago, MOPanfisher said:

  Back when I had beagles they would occasionally chase them, but weren't quite sure what to do about them.

Most coonhounds will bay them and make you walk a half mile to find out there is no coon.

No the box trapping that I described is not to obtain pets. It is a method used by pros to remove armadillos from airports and fancy peoples lawns. Dispatch is required, but it takes the long range rifle out of the equation and keeps your neighbors safe. Rifles that are accurate at distance are deadly at much greater distance and you have said the shooter is not that accurate (needs multiple shots and can't work a bolt) which means a lot of bullets bouncing around who knows where or how far.

  Now I have to ask, how is a 10/22 any better than any other 22 semi auto at a hundred or more yards? Ruger's site says they are .22lr?

I'm not saying it won't work in the hands of a sniper, I once saw a deer killed at 110 yards with a single shot 22, but, it was said already in this thread that .22lr was no good beyond 40 yards and no one contested that, so my question is how does the rifle improve the ammunition to that extent?

[Devan S.]

Back then we were young and dumb, knees/ankle/back pain weren't a concern. There was certainly dumber things we could have been doing at that age. 

My point is ultimately they are pretty basic critters. 

[Terrierman]

12 minutes ago, tjm said:

Most coonhounds will bay them and make you walk a half mile to find out there is no coon.

No the box trapping that I described is not to obtain pets. It is a method used by pros to remove armadillos from airports and fancy peoples lawns. Dispatch is required, but it takes the long range rifle out of the equation and keeps your neighbors safe. Rifles that are accurate at distance are deadly at much greater distance and you have said the shooter is not that accurate (needs multiple shots and can't work a bolt) which means a lot of bullets bouncing around who knows where or how far.

  Now I have to ask, how is a 10/22 any better than any other 22 semi auto at a hundred or more yards? Ruger's site says they are .22lr?

I'm not saying it won't work in the hands of a sniper, I once saw a deer killed at 110 yards with a single shot 22, but, it was said already in this thread that .22lr was no good beyond 40 yards and no one contested that, so my question is how does the rifle improve the ammunition to that extent?

I think the 10/22 comments are more related to cheap, plentiful, quick follow up, and not the rifle that you're afraid to get knocked around a little. 

.22 LR isn't normally considered a 100 yard round, mostly due to exterior ballistics.  If you zero at 50 yards, they drop somewhere around 5 to 6 inches at 100 yards and wind moves them around pretty good too.  By comparison, .22WMR zeroed at 50 yards drops less than 2 inches.  That's easily the difference between a hit and a miss.  Sure you can hold over with .22LR but you need to practice to know how much at various ranges.

[tjm]

18 minutes ago, Terrierman said:

.22 LR isn't normally considered a 100 yard round, mostly due to exterior ballistics. 

Exactly.

For most shooters that need to reload quickly the effective .22lr range would be about the same as  shotgun range and shot doesn't pose the ricochet or clean miss miles of travel hazard.  (they used say to a mile danger on box of .22lr, I guess that's still true)