Vegetarian Raccoons?

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Jeez people. We have raccoons. Skunks. Possums. Coyotes. And that's just the ones I know about. If I tried to eliminate them all, I wouldn't have time in the day to do anything else. Our losses to them are zero. Why? Because the runs and coops are unattractive to them and they can find food elsewhere. What's wrong with peaceful coexistence? You can make it work. We do.
 
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I think you can have peaceful coexistence, and letting the predators be that aren't causing problems isn't a bad way to go. I don't think actually feeding them is a good idea, however. A secure run will keep them from turning to the chickens and they will move on (hopefully further on) when the fruit is gone.

I also believe peaceful coexistence goes better with a little harassment from humans. When they don't see us as a threat, they become dangerous. Wild thing stay wild by maintaining a healthy fear of humans.
 
Hey, I'm all for peaceful coexistence, but feeding wildlife is probably a bad idea. Even if your resident coons are content with avacados and a pan of dog food, these things will eventually attract other coons (which may have eaten chicken all their lives), plus possums, skunks, and almost certainly stray dogs (which will ignore your fruit tree and possibly dig into your chicken run when your dog food is gone).

As has been said by the others, your "vegetarian raccoons" are merely concentrating on 1 food source before moving on to the next. Secure your coop & pen! What do you think coons eat when there's no fruit, veggies or nuts available?
 
We, too, have raccoons (1 or more) in the yard virtually every night. They rattled the door a few times about a year and a half ago, and to my knowledge have not bothered the coop since. They raid my birdseed every night, and that's OK with me, since they leave the girls alone. Whenever there is enough snow to track their prints around the yard, I have NEVER seen those prints near the coop.

However, we lock up the chickens every night, and we have a baby monitor in the coop. I don't say that the raccoons will NEVER try, but we are prepared for that too, so we rather enjoy our birdseed bandits. Some nights they come right up to our bedroom window on the deck roof!
 

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