Crawfish castle in my raised bed

[Schroeder]

I have a crawfish (aka crawdad) in my raised blueberry bed. It is a good 30 yards from the pond. I just built the bed this spring. I keep removing the mud "castles" and filling the holes with pine bark mulch, but he/she won't leave. Any ideas how I might get rid of it? I hope the bed is high enough to overcome the water that is under the surface, but that is another story.

 

[Carol Dee]

Have you seen the offending crawdad? Can you do a catch and release far from the bed? Good Luck.

 

[Schroeder]

I never see the offenders, just their handywork. Maybe they do their building at night?

 

[bj taylor]

that has to be a unique pest. I have them, but not in my beds. maybe go "fishing" & drop a string w/bacon on the end & pull 'em out.

 

[journey11]

Interesting... I would like to know too. I've seen little holes all over the place in damper areas of my yard which I *thought* must by crawdads, but I can't see that they had done any damage to the plants...

 

[majorcatfish]

never heard if that, would be neat to see a picture of the mud castles

 

[Collector]

Never heard of such a thing happening! Who wooda thunk it lol.

 

[hoodat]

That's a sign of a high water table. They have to be able to dig deep enough for the hole to have water at the bottom. I used to live in a place that had those mud towers all over the pasture. You could go out at night with a flashlight and see them "mowing" the lawn. I never realized before that that they would eat grass.

 

[so lucky]

We get them in our yard, too. Just a mud tower with a hole down the middle. Kinda lumpy, made with wet lumps of mud. They dry pretty hard. I guess the biggest one I've seen has been about 9" tall. You can get the crawdads to latch onto a stick that is inserted down the hole, and drag them out. But often they will drop off at the last minute. I guess it's something to keep the kids occupied for a while, lol.

 

[majorcatfish]

heres a link showing some castles way to cool.... sorry that they are giving you problems
http://www.micsaund.com/2007/07/05/random-interesting-tidbit-crawdad-tunnels/

my best advice... a pot of boiling water with some old bay seasoning and butter pour it down the hole when they float to the top they are ready to eat