How to Kill Crawdads in a Lawn

Crawdad is another name for crayfish or crawfish. The animals thrive in moist and wet soils and resemble lobsters closely. Continually soggy lawns tend to develop problems with crawdads. The creatures create 1-inch-wide mounds of soil around their habitat holes and invite secondary pests such as birds to lawns that dig up and destroy grass looking for their prey. You can kill crawdads using pesticides or by creating less hospitable soil environment for them.

Things You'll Need

Lawn pesticides
Chloride of lime
Water
Turpentine

Powdered soap
Watering can
Compressed air sprayer

Instructions

- 1
  Use general use lawn pesticides used for insect pest in turf to kill crawdads. There are no registered pesticides specifically for use with crawdads.
- 2
  Mix together 1 lb. of chloride of lime in 3 gallons of water. Stir until dissolved. Chloride of lime is also referred to as bleaching powder. Using a compressed air sprayer or watering can with the sprayer removed, pour 1 to 2 oz. of the solution down each burrow. Press the top the burrow closed by bringing the earth together with your foot. As cited by the Ohio State University Extension site, this will take only a few hours to kill the crawdads.
- 3
  Use a turpentine and soap solution as an alternate method by mixing 2 qts. of turpentine and ¼ lb. of powdered soap in 1 qt. of water. Mix together one part of this solution to 50 parts of water and use in same manner as the chloride of lime to kill crawdads.

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