How can you get rid of crayfish in your garden without killing plants?

Never heard of crawdads out of the water, live and learn. Good eating. Used to catch these all day as a kid and sold them to the bait shop, and used the money to go to the movies for me and my brother.

Found this article with a product for getting rid of them.... http://bugspray.com/articles99/crayfish.html

More than 300 crayfish species are found in North America, and it is important to understand which you are dealing with in your lawn.

“It is possible that the species in question is considered of concern, threatened or even endangered,” he said.

In fact, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries lists “imperiled” or “critically imperiled” crawfish populations in 23 Louisiana parishes.

Lutz explained another factor to consider is some of the crawfish in yards maybe remnant populations from where bottomlands were cleared to prepare the site for homes.

In Louisiana, crawfish are normally associated with bodies of water, whether it’s ponds or the Atchafalaya Basin.

But some species of crawfish spend their entire lives away from permanent water, Lutz said.

“In the early spring they leave their burrows for a few hours after heavy rainfalls and mate,” Lutz said. “Then a few weeks later, the females lay their eggs, and the next heavy rain they will emerge again and turn their babies loose in large puddles and ditches.”

More inquiries about crawfish burrows in lawns occur this time of year because they have just finished their spawning season and are back in the ground cleaning out and enlarging their burrows – or making their very first burrows.

There are a few considerations when looking for ways to rid your yard of the “mudbugs.”

“Using pesticides in burrows is not only a bad idea, it’s also illegal. And putting bleach down in the burrow is often ineffective,” Lutz said. “The one thing that seems to work is lye.”

Abiut one tablespoon full usually does the job. And as it migrates through the surrounding soil, lye turns into harmless by-products.

“Remember you need to wear hand and eye protection when applying the lye."

Thank you! We live on top of an Aquaphor and next to a ditch, I didn't want to harm the environment or my vegetable garden. The darn things are coming up (mud tunnels) next to and under my tomato plants.

Learned this trick when we lived in Missouri (my great aunt said to do this and it works), Dawn dish liquid mixed with water in a sprayer, spray area where you see the mole tunnels this kills the grubs the the moles eat thus chasing the moles away. Plus it doesn't hurt your ground and controls o

You might want to consider container planting in the future until you can get rid of them.