Do Armadillos kill poultry or eat poultry eggs?

[Somechick]

...and if you don't believe me, you can google armadillos, there are plenty of .edu pages, newspaper articles and wildlife web pages that report the range into SC (uh on the East coast last time I checked?)

A professor, Joshua Nixon, in NC is tracking the expansion of armadillos and predicts them to go beyond SC (the map covers the lower half of SC) well into the northeast/New England.

Joshua Nixon is supposedly the leading authority on armadillos, I found reference to his page in the Charleston, SC newspaper, the News and Courrier in articles about Armadillos in South Carolina:

https://www.msu.edu/~nixonjos/armadillo/

the expansion range map is here:
https://www.msu.edu/~nixonjos/armadillo/expansion.html
look for them on a roadside near you!

Or maybe I just halucinated that armadillos are on the east coast...

 

[RoyalHillsLLC]

"possum on the half shell" is not bad eatin' either.

 

[SpottedCrow]

Holy Halfshell, Ironman!!
I nevah woulda thunkit...

You can have it all Royalhills.

 

[MissouriGal13]

Found one scuttling around out near our coops last night. They never lived in Mid Missouri before the last few years. Global warming has extended their range.
I'll watch and see if he's getting into nests. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

 

[LaKASkill]

Thanx for the post. I just fed my chicks their scratch and on my way out an armadillo was running away from my hen house. This post helped a lot.

 

[LilDrummerGirl]

I don't think armadillos even live on the East Coast...

I live on the northeast coast of florida and they are all over!!! Had one in my backyard today praying that it eats all the fire ants!!!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Armadillos don't eat turkeys, they eat bugs. I also consider them a cheap way to get my lawn aerated.

Your friend is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadil

All small predators eat bugs, grubs, insects, etc. What is it about an opportunistic hunter do we not understand? I doubt that an armadillo would kill a turkey hen but I also doubt that an armadillo would pass up an Easter egg hunt, even if it wasn't Easter..

 

[carlf]

They really dont have much in the way of teeth, completely adapted to eating bugs, worms, etc.. They will break and slurp up eggs if they happen across a nest but dont search them out.

 

[Gibbie]

Well, I am so devastated. I found a dead chicken this morning. I checked on them last night around 8:30 pm and they were on the roost asleep. When I got out there this morning she was laying on the ground and half of her poor little body was pulled through the fence and eaten. I am just heartbroken! I did notice that an armadillo had torn our yard all to pieces this morning as well. However, I don't think it was the Armadillo because they don't normally bother chickens but it does seem odd that both of these things happened on the same night. I told my husband that obviously, my babies need to be better protected than they already are but we can't do anything until we get home tonight. I am so afraid that something might happen to another one before I get back home to work on securing them better.

 

[Frazzemrat1]

Well, I am so devastated. I found a dead chicken this morning. I checked on them last night around 8:30 pm and they were on the roost asleep. When I got out there this morning she was laying on the ground and half of her poor little body was pulled through the fence and eaten. I am just heartbroken! I did notice that an armadillo had torn our yard all to pieces this morning as well. However, I don't think it was the Armadillo because they don't normally bother chickens but it does seem odd that both of these things happened on the same night. I told my husband that obviously, my babies need to be better protected than they already are but we can't do anything until we get home tonight. I am so afraid that something might happen to another one before I get back home to work on securing them better.

That sounds like a raccoon. Armadillos are insectivores, meaning they eat insects. They will eat eggs if they happen upon them, but otherwise they eat bugs.