Maybe a couple reasons.......
Seem as though there was a very successful breeding season for coons around here......and with so many around, the mothers may be hard pressed to find enough food for the now 1/2 / 3/4 grown kits (like feeding teenagers), so may be getting more desperate and thus aggressive. Using game cameras, I have documented 3 family groups......of 3, 4 and 5 kits....coming to my barn nightly. They are not killing my chickens because they can't......chicken house is too tight for that.....but they come for other stuff.......like cat food and hopefully sweet corn. Am putting a stop to both of those.
In the case of large, tasty chickens, (or any other easy source of food) if coons have any success at all....that is positive reinforcement, which means they will be back. But a chicken in particular is a big reward for not much effort on their part.
A second reason a person may be catching a lot of coons is if they are live trapping and releasing them. If that is the case, it might well be the same coons.
