Armadillos Carry Leprosy

Discussion in 'General Survival and Preparedness' started by GrandpaDave, Feb 2, 2012.


  1. CATO

    CATO Monkey+++

    No sweat...just thinking out loud.

    But, check this out:

    Lyme Disease Origin Conspiracy Theories

    The interesting and fun things about conspiracy theories though is the campfire discussion they create.
     
  2. gunbunny

    gunbunny Never Trust A Bunny

    No insults were implied or stated, I was being sarcastic; I guess I didn't carry that over too well.

    What I ment is that there are so many ill things planned and done to us on a daily basis that it really isn't a conspiracy anymore- just standard operating proceedure.
     
  3. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    Damn, it seems as all of us were just having a failure to communicate. Including myself of course. Sorry, cheers [boozingbuddies]
     
    larryinalabama likes this.
  4. ditch witch

    ditch witch I do stupid crap, so you don't have to

    Nine banded armadillos sell for a few hundred at exotic auctions. I have no idea why. I used to catch them at my old place all the time. If they are busy grubbing, you can often walk up behind one and pick him up. Hands on either side, well out of reach of his claws. They don't smell nice.

    The vet told me about the leprosy thing when I called to ask about how to care for one I'd caught. Needless to say I turned him loose and scrubbed the crap out of my hands.

    A guy selling them at the Loli Bros exotic sale in Missouri told me it was BS, he'd handled them forever and never caught it. Maybe he's right, but the word of some two toothed 'baccy spittin bubba at a sale barn isn't quite enough to convince me to get a 'dilla for a house pet.
     
    Sapper John, ghrit and chelloveck like this.
  5. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    Leprosy is a bit of a mystery to me. I probably should know more about it. Obviously it is not as great of a public health scourge as it was once upon a time. I am no big fan of a disease that can cause one to lose the sense of touch, and has body parts falling off.
    .
    Years and years ago I shot and provided armadillos to a south florida lady who offerred to cook one up to show me how good they taste. Being young and adventurous I indulged her. I wasn't impressed with either her cooking or the taste of the so called possum on the half shell. The meat was rather bland.
    .
    40 years ago when this occurred, armadillo meat might have been leprosy free or an unknown threat, I couldn't say. Man's tampering with mother nature has been the root of many problems in the world, and I doubt that man is lily white innocent in this either. Call me a cynic or whatever, but maybe in the future some genetic forensic scientist will pin down where and when this threat started. Why are not all armadillos world wide or at least everywhere they are found leprosy carriers? ... or are they?
     
  6. chelloveck

    chelloveck Diabolus Causidicus

    OMG if it's not PETA it's the 12 Monkeys!

    1. My empasis

    I'm thinking Jeffrey Goines and his 12 Monkeys movement......and we all know how that ended! : O

    12 Monkeys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  7. Smitty

    Smitty Monkey+

    From what I've heard, they carry it in their saliva therefore you would catch it from a bite or from a scratch if one had recently cleaned it's paws or such....


    Smitty
     
  8. Espada

    Espada Monkey+

    I ate some armadillo at a "wild meat party" (the food, not an off-campus sorority event !), and it was tolerable, white meat.

    Next week I shot one in my front yard, to try it out. Turned it over to expose the belly and begin the process, and gave up... picture a filthy dirty hairy armpit a foot across with ten ticks dug into it.
     
    ditch witch likes this.
  9. weegrannymush

    weegrannymush Monkey+

    I know you Southerners love your South (and I know it's very beautiful) but I am very glad I live in the North......no black widow spiders, no armadillos, no alligators and a whole lot of other "no's", lol! Just the occasional Massassauga Rattler who will avoid me as eagerly as I avoid him. And, of course, our friendly neighbourhood Black Flies, the curse of the North. But they don't spread any diseases, or at least, none that have been discovered yet! There is a lot to be said for cold climates! I'll try to remind myself of that next time the temp goes down to minus 20 or 30C!
     
  10. BTPost

    BTPost Stumpy Old Fart,Deadman Walking, Snow Monkey Moderator

    Don't forget the Mosquitoes, and NoSeeums, Granny....
     
    weegrannymush likes this.
  11. ditch witch

    ditch witch I do stupid crap, so you don't have to

    And fire ants!
     
  12. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    Just for the record. We have nurtured all the dangerous or nuisance pests and animals listed above, and a few others not listed, for the sole purpose of trying to keep Damn Yankees from moving down here.:mad:
     
  13. weegrannymush

    weegrannymush Monkey+


    LOL! I guess we all walked right into that one, haha!

    I would love to have visited the South but being a bit (actually a lot!) insect phobic, I have always been a somewhat put off by the various nasties you have in your warmer climate. I have trouble enough just coping with what we do have up here. I quite enjoy the winter for the sole reason that we are bug free for a while. Not a nice day for me in early spring when I discover the first spider waltzing across my ceiling (usually right over my head). As my son says, they know how I feel and they find me!

    And no, I hadn't forgotten the mosquitos, they're just not as scary to me as the other things. I did forget to mention Earwigs, which are the bane of my existence - made worse by the fact that they are European Earwigs which means some eedjit brought them over with them. And OMG, centipedes, no need to say more on that. I'd sooner face a sabre-toothed tiger than any of these things.
     
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  14. larryinalabama

    larryinalabama Monkey++

    Life is GOOD in the Deep South.........even for the misquetos I guess
     
  15. Wolfgang2000

    Wolfgang2000 Monkey++

    Armadillos tear things up, some opossums will kill a a horse. ( If they pee on the feed and the horse eats it it starts to destroys the nervous system. I've seen it once. It's a gruesome way to go. You can't even test for it until the horse is dead. Not all opossums carry it, but there is no way to tell which one has it.

    So in my book the only good opossum is a dead one. Armadillos, and other critters, stay away from the house and we're cool.
     
  16. bushrat

    bushrat Monkey+


    To my knowledge leprosy can't be cured, the drugs only arrest its progress and prevents them from being infectious.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002323/
     
  17. Jay Tx

    Jay Tx Monkey+

  18. squiddley

    squiddley Monkey+++

    Would that be a tactical armadillo?[peep]
     
  19. Matteo10572

    Matteo10572 Monkey+

    BBQ'd a bunch o dillos and ate them growin up. I never had a problem with any of them. It is my understanding that the likelyhood of dillos carrying leprosy is connected to low lying marshy swampy areas. All of the ones we ate came from the hill country. It was always a test of how sneaky you can be to sneak up on one close enough to catch one by the tail and hold him up.
     
  20. tacmotusn

    tacmotusn RIP 1/13/21

    I think the main point is that it has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that armadillos now can be carriers of leprosy. A disease where you lose feeling first, then the parts start to rot off. Why take a chance. Once upon a time it might have been safe to eat them. Now, not so much. Why go in harms way for no real reason?
    .
    Y'all do whatever floats your boat. I will do the same. My apologies if I offended anyone before I edited this.
     
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