Raccoons

[Tiffrz-N-Kidz]

Quote:
Technically I can't shoot them inside the city limits but I was willing to do so if it would have been a deterrant. (sp?)

Actually, it's Animal Control's fault I have this particular problem. Well, not really their FAULT, they were just doing the city's bidding, but because of Animal Control, I had to move my birds from the relative safety of my own backyard where I could have (and have) handled raccoon problems myself (ssshhhhh....) to a nearby boarding facility (also within city limits) where I can not.

They weren't open anyway so I took the little buggers out past the lake and dumped their sorry butts there. Traps getting reset this evening.

 

[Tiffrz-N-Kidz]

Quote:
The pen is under a grove of trees.

 

[Dogfish]

You can run a line from your pen to an open area where you can set your charger on a post.

 

[Tiffrz-N-Kidz]

Thanks, I will look into that.

Of course now I have looked up 'relocating' and found that I have done a horrible thing by not just killing the poor things. sigh.

Time to call Dad to borrow his 22.

 

[debontheweb]

Electric fencing can be run from batteries as well . The don't take much power.

 

[mjuenem]

Put the solar panel near the top of one of those trees.

 

[bobbi-j]

Quote:
X2 - We have a fencer that's run by a car battery. Works great to keep the deer and coons out of the sweet corn patch!

 

[aprophet]

A 220 size conibear trap makes them dead and quietly I use them fairly regularly to dispatch critters in town

 

[Tiffrz-N-Kidz]

Well, I trapped another one last night. This one was a really mean young male. I was actually scared to put the trap in the car because he kepy lunging at me and growling. What if he got loose?!?!? And I was thinking about how far I would have to drive at 11 MPG to get him far enough away that he'd never get back. Did some math and figured a $0.02 bullet was a better investment.

So I did it. Borrowed Dad's 22 rifle. Bought bullets. Loaded. Aimed. Deep breath. Aim again. Deep breath. He growled and lunged at me scaring me. I Fired.

WOW, that was horrible! He writhed around and blood was flowing from the wound and his mouth and ears. Then his eyeball popped out. NASTY!!! I popped him two more times before he finally stopped. Now, granted it was probably a total of 15 seconds, but it felt like forever. I have never killed anything myself on purpose.

But once I got the body in the bag and felt how heavy he was after getting fat on eating my chickens, I had no regrets.

 

[MetalSmitten]

i was sad at the prospect of killing a raccoon originally too. until one of them literally pulled two of my month-old baby chickens through a 1" gap in their house. 15 seconds of thrashing is way more humane than the way the coons killed my babies. i no longer have any qualms about doing what needs to be done. and coons are VICIOUS, evil creatures, as cute as they may appear. you made a good decision to not risk that being in your car. make sure you reset the trap though... we thought we had maybe 2 coons coming around our property -- hah, we're up to 11 now 'cos we keep setting the trap.