Armadillos

Hi, new here.

I saw a video of a well known team of pro-shop archery hunters. They were hunting pigs, and one guy shot an armadillo.

I went to the Net to find out if those animals are of any use, and it came up positive, that they are very good eating. So the kill seemed ethical. But I also learned that they carry Hansen's Disease (leprosy), which is a skin disease that is virtually incurable and disfiguring, and humans do get it.

Can a person catch the disease by dressing and eating armadillos?

Peet

you might consider sticking with banjo playing at the local holiday inn if your hungry enough to eat an armadillo

I dont know about dressing and eating them. The buzzards and the flies dont mind if they're whole.

I'm not sure. You should try possum.

I remember in the 70's just about every living room in Texas had a stuffed armadillo holding a Lone Star beer bottle. If I'm remembering correctly a few taxidermists ended up getting leprosy and eventually none would touch a dead armadillo.

I eaten them and didn't like it enough to eat another one.

First off

Often referred to as "turkey on the halfshell", they were eaten by early white settlers to Texas. Don't remember any catching leprosy. What makes them valuable to medical research in leprosy is they bear their young as quadruples, all four identical.

Willie Nelson and Gary Busey ate one in "Barbarosa".

hummmmmm, great target pratice

I would pass on eating them

ta THF

almost fell outa the tree. How ever on a hog hunt, pulled up ta sign in, still dark. Heard rustling in ditch, eased over ta see what it was & got attacted by an armadillo.

Bernie has an armadillo gun...

I've seen some crazy flower baskets made out of an armadillo. A guy I knew years ago would kill em, stick their tail in their mouth and then bury em in a red ant pile. He'd go back several months later and dig em up. Usually they were picked clean with just the shell remaining. He'd varnish them and make a basket out of them! Me... I just seem to have a jihad against them for digging up my yard. Never wanted to eat one...

Not exactly. Armadillos were not reported in Texas until the late 19th century and then only in the Rio Grande Valley. It was largely after 1900 that they spread beyond the Rio Grande Valley.

Guess we have different sources. This reports armadillos in the Rio Grande valley before 1850 which would be before mid 19th century. Heck, I wasn't there so I don't know. I thought they were in Austin about the time of the Civil War.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/tca02

All I know is that my 22 mag puts them to sleep......

None of us have the same life experiences, values, and upbringing. Passing judgement on someone else's ethics is a slippery slope. Many on here won't care what you consider an "ethical" kill. But, a lot of folks would consider the armadillo a nuisance and that is their motivation to kill them.

Always heard them called "Hoover hogs" by my parents and the neighbors their age that grew up during the great depression. I have killed lots of them over the years and had a neighbor who would cook anything we killed. As a kid I have eaten just about every animal in East Texas other than a skunk or domestic pet. Not saying I would try most of them again though.

Yep, I'm with Old Rooster. My grandparents also called them Hoover Hogs, remembering those Great Depression years. I hear that the meat is pretty good if prepared well, though I don't think I've eaten any. But I've sure shot my fair share of them. And in my younger days, I could run them down and catch them - which really impressed my daughters when they were small.

Is anything uglier than an Armadillo's belly?

Kill them all!!!!!

My dog kills them and eats them. What are you talking about ethical in the same sentence with armafillo. There are plenty and they are destructive blind dumb animals

approx 5% of the human population are capable of catching leprosy from armadillos is what they were saying on dead meat yesterday when they were cooking one.
since i make a habit of shooting them with the highest power firearm available at the moment cleaning much less eating one is rarely a option.

We had a neighbor that relished killing everyone he could find. Old square head that grew up working horseback. Those holes will break a horse's leg.

First lesson I received about firearm safety involved an armadillo. Dad made me shoot one with a shotgun, made me look at it real close, and then firmly explained that that is what it would look like to accidentally shoot someone. The lesson stuck.

Haven't seen that many as I used to as a kid. Wonder if pigs have something to do with that.

I remember a small shop that had all kinds of stuff made out of the shells.

About 15 years ago I was running some hog hunts with some hunters from up north(I don't remember what state). But they had never seen an armadillo. They shot six of them I think. They wanted to take each one to a taxidermist. I don't remember the name of the guy in San Antonio, but he wasn't too happy to get those for some reason.

Every now and then we get some people that have never seen one before. They all seem to act like its some kind of dinosaur or something really spectacular. To them I guess it is, being a first sighting of one. To me its a nuisance that leaves holes I have to fill.

Have killed,caught,and eaten them.First one I ate was at Sweetwater Rattlesnake round up,and was ok.Then I shot and cooked one and it was terrible.

I've always heard them referred to as Possum on the halfshell.

Back in the early '80s we used to chase them around the woods near Nacogdoches, alcohol was absolutely involved. When we would occasionaly catch one it was sort of a 'now what' moment.

Really like 'Barbarosa'.

Years ago, my Hunter Ed teacher told us that 20% of dillos had leprosy that could be passed to humans. Years before that my cousin killed one and BBQed it in the oven. It was tasty if a little greasy.

I was raised on the theory you only killed something if you were going to eat it, it was doing you/your family harm or if you were to get something good out of killing it ... not just killing it to be killing. All the area ranchers that we had access to their property for various types of hunting told us to kill every armadillo we saw as their burrows/holes were dangerous for livestock (breaking legs), so we killed as many as possible. My hometown also had a rattlesnake & armadillo roundup each spring and we would go catch as many armadillos as we could for prizes. They also served fried armadillo and rattlesnake, stringy chicken was my perception.

Upon becoming an adult and getting my own deer lease, the old (80s) land owner told us we had full access and could kill anything but armadillos or fur bearing animals. He and his older brother still went out head lighting on foot for fur bearing... but I couldn't help but question him on the armadillos. He said he used to kill them all until one day he heard they were edible and he decided to give it a try. Upon cleaning one, he wondered what they ate, so cut into the guts to see. He said it was full of mosquitoes and mosquito larva ... said he never shot another one if they would multiple and wipe out mosquitoes. I haven't intentionally killed one since.

Slow to croak if you pop with 22lr1. Did sneak up on one couple years ago in Oklahoma, he was just down hill from me and I put a Redwing boot to him and don't know who was rolling more! Me laughing so hard or him bouncing and rolling towards stock pond. Thought about sticking one with arrow but really don't want to waste arrow and broadhead on one!

PMK, I think that old rancher was pulling your leg about the mosquitos and larva.

I remember the only time I saw my grandfather run was once he jumped out of the hunting rig, caught a dillo and smashed it upside a tree. In the army in WWI he bought and sold horses and mules for the army. (As an aside, he had two different strings of horses poisoned while waiting to be loaded on ships in NYC. Saboteurs.)

Armadillo holes can be nasty. I dang near broke my leg stepping off into one one night. Nothing like stepping off into a deep hole while your body is moving forward. No weno.

I lost an appetite for any Armadillo. I had killed a couple of coyotes and skinned them in the winter of 1979. Took the carcasses down on the creek on our place and tossed them out. Nothing touched them at all for a few days. I drove passed them to check cattle one day and noticed somethings sticking out the belly of one yote....it was an Armadillo. It backed out of the body cavity of the stinking yote and was covered in that nasty insides of the yote.

I not sure I want to admit this but I have killed and eaten many armadillo. Only ate the back legs. They were all ove Gulf Hammock and easy to get. We ate them while we were camping. Wasn't to bad I guess. Not sure I would do it again.

Never got any diseases that I know of from them. Pretty sure I was born ugly so that can't be it!

Dad had a hand and his wife that lived on a place we owned in western Mills in the early sixties that killed and ate every armadillo he saw.His yard there at the ranch house was lined with armadillo shells year around. I killed more than my share in my younger years but numbers have been dwindling for years now and I don't kill them unless they're digging in the yard.

When I was a kid, me and some of buddies used to go camping alot and we would always kill something and cook it a camp fire and i think we tried just about everything including armadillo, I remember it being stringy, I never tried it again because I found out later about the leprosy.

We also stopped the trying everything we killed thing, figured if armadillos had leprosy who knows what else we could get from other critters..

leprosy is curable with a three part injection treatment that takes about a year to complete. It won't fix what damage is done to you before the treatment but it can be cured.

We have quite a few on our ranch in Eldorado and I see them occasionally where we hunt pigs near Bonham. I always figured they were beneficial because they ate bugs. Their burrows are large but most of the holes the dig looking for bugs are pretty small.

approximant 5% of the armadillo population have leprosy...about that same amount do humans contract the disease from eating the meat.

I've eaten Armadillo, BBQ'd.
And although the texture is a bit like chicken as it's stringy like that,
the flavor was not. But if I were hungry enough I wouldn't hesitate to
eat another one.

I ate quite a few growing up. It was better than a lot of the meat in the stores today.

You sure it wasn't a possum? I've seen possums crawl out of dead cows, but never a 'dillo.

100% sure it was an armadillo. Carcass was filled with maggots. Had my cousin with me at the time and he was surprised also. Back in '92 when it rained 40" the first 6 months of the year on a ranch I was managing I watched an armadillo walking down a deep rut till he got a spot that was full of water in both ruts...he just kept going. Walked into the water that was over his back and kept walking till he got to the other end about 20 ft down the rut. I looked at the guy who was in the truck with me that day and said just happened?

I have tried them BBQ, Worst thing I have tried by far. Really stringy and oily tasting and not enough meat to even worry about unless you are starving.

When I was driving my big truck I loved to see them on the side of the road. Right before I'd get to them I'd blow the air horn and they would jump about 4' in the air. They can't see very good. One day at the house I got behind one and slapped the ground with a flip flop and he jumped too. My 7 & 11 yr. old sons almost fell in the creek laughing so hard.

News today, 3 new cases of leprosey in Florida , 2 caused by the animal your eating. I just shoot them.