After saying several times that we dont have trouble with raccoons her

[Knix6468]

My husband was checking on the chicks in the brooder and he comes quickly back into the house and says for me to come with him. He said the oddest thing
is happening, there are Owls in the trees. We have never had owls around our house that we have known of. knowing we have small chicks vulnerable to owl
attacks we start talking about what we needed to do. He shines the light into the tree and sure enough, two sets of eyes that look like owls are staring back.

We adjust the beam on the flashlight so that it is more powerful at the distance instead of wide angle, and whoops, What do we see, two racoons, 20 feet in a tree
from our green house that is not raccoon proof. DANG.

They just sit there looking at us, The greenhouse is lit up with the brooder lights, and the chicks are merrily peeping behind us having no idea what danger they
are in. My husband is under the impression that the 1 ft opening around the top of the greenhouse is inaccessible to the crafty creatures, but we have trees that they
can easily gain access to our roof and then its just a hop down to the greenhouse roof and then right in.

I take a few warning shots at them with my pellet gun, and they run off. back into the woods. we watch for a bit to make sure that they arent coming back. I wander around the back of
the house , and low and behold, we have two skunks on the back porch.

What a night.

We now have to figure out, Any advice?

1. are the raccoons coming back?
2. what to do about making the greenhouse chicks more secure.
3. what to do about our other females that are brooding one is 3 feet off the ground in nest box, the other two are 6ft off the ground, all have nets that can be climbed right next to them.
parts of the cage has wired buried, the new parts do not have any wire underground at all.
4. Have we had raccoons this whole time that are coming here to eat the cat food near the peafowl and have been leaving them alone because they are enjoying cat food and we need to
continue to leave tons out so that they will not eat our chicks.

 

[Kedreeva]

Shoot the raccoons the next time you see them (and there will be a next time, especially if you are leaving out food like cat food, which they LOVE), don't fire warning shots. They are crafty and they are MEAN- if they get into your coop they are well known for killing everything they can rather than just what they need and you will not forgive yourself if you could have killed them first and didn't. If you feel bad shooting an animal, then just imagine it's already killed your favorite pea and you will stop. The skunks as well, as they will eat chicks and eggs if they get half a chance- but do that away from the house.

For the pens that do not have wire buried in the ground, you can place landscaping lumber at the bases of the pens and wire or nail or otherwise secure them to the bottom of the pen to keep them from lifting the sides of the pen or pushing under. They will have to dig and will probably not make it under the lumber in one night.

Get that one foot hole in the roof covered -immediately- with something strong and make sure it is secure. They will absolutely figure out how to get in through it eventually, your husband clearly has not dealt with them before- my friend has had them squeeze through six inch holes in the roof before that she thought were much too small to cover.

If you have to, leave a bait pile for the coons on a side of your property that is away from the chicks and only give the chicks/bird treats when you are present (and secure the chicks at night if you can). And use the bait pile for what it was intended to do- bait the coons which are there to kill them- no warning shots, no live traps... they can (and do) find their way back to feasting properties from over 10 mile away drops.

 

[connerhills]

Opossoms have been around for many a long time and are very crafty at getting somethiing to eat.. When I lived in OKLA. we had a number of them that ate on our birds and eggs and feed.. the dogs treed one about 9 pm so I took my 357 mag. to see what it was.. The opossom was on a limb about 9-10 ft high.. I shot and hit the thing 4 out of 5 time and the 6 shot dropped him from the tree. they'' take a licking and keep on ticking.'' This is with a 357 magnum and he was not dead when he hit the ground so the dogs got to finish it.. I would suggest something stronger than the pellet gun,, maybe a 12 guage..auto.. good luck getting the coons as you know this is where they find goodies.. Last year I shot 9 coons while the were in the live trap, most were very mad and were attacting me while in the trap , these were shot in the head with the 357 mag. some took 2 shots . a fully grown boar coon can whip most dogs in the open pretty easy ,,George

 

[Kedreeva]

My friend has got a blue heeler dog, and boy if he hasn't killed every single coon, opossum, skunk, and weasel that's ever been on their property. The last one he got, he buried in pieces in their yard.

And yes, I'd consider getting a shotgun for the wildlife, and possibly a live trap or two so they can guard while you are asleep.

 

[ColbyNTX]

The coons willl be back and they will kill your chicks! Kill them, trap them or something. I lost my good pyreneese that kept everything away! I have 2 young ones and they are doing a great job but not fully trained yet. I lost 2 young turkeys(about 3 months old) through a chain link fence last week to a coon. Grabbed them and pulled them through piece by piece.

 

[Knix6468]

Thanks for the information, and warnings. My DH now believes we have a serious problem now. And we are working to get raccoon proofed as well as upgrading my single shot break/stock pellet gun to something I can get a few more shots out of without having to stand there and fumble getting pellets out of the tin, the right direction and reloaded into the rifle, then re-aim for a second shot while holding the flashlight. I am a good shot, but I can tell you I have missed more than one opportunity to get one of the buggars waiting for the animal to turn or move so I will be sure to get good, because 1. you want to be humane 2. if you just injure it it just runs off I cant get a second shot to finish (because i am so slow at reloading also loosing my close up vision due to age doesnt help ).

I have managed to get rid of 4 skunks so far. we have at least 3 more living under a shed, and at least 2 raccoon/owls

It is so funny looking at the ads air rifles/pellet guns, the new quiet c-02 guns, I kept trying to figure out, why that was a marketing perk, I didn't care if the quiet gun was a bit more quieter??
then I watched a video that actually referred to how your neighbors wont hear you firing, then went on to mention the neighbors cats or stray cats or other varmints. I had never thought that people in the city are using these to kill neighbors cats, I would only kill something out of necessity, ie this situation where its our birds/livestock or them.

 

[clinton9]

Get your gun licenses & guns and do destroy the raccoons as they are very intelligent mammals and use their hands to tear a hole in fences and for dig the hole under fences, and can climb the trees.

Or get dog license & buy puppies and you will be pleased the dogs do good job of tell you by barking when they see raccoons and like veleraptiors, 4 dogs could tear a big adult male raccoon into pieces. 2 dogs won't work, as you might loose a dog to a bear, leave you with one dog, So you need 4 dogs.
A male raccoon defend itself, can bite the neck of dog, killing the dog and eat the dog body. Bears enjoy eating the dead dogs & peafowls.

Once you keep shooting the raccoons every time you see them, the numbers of raccoons will start to decrease, but remember there are young raccoons left their parental homes and walk long way in search of new homes, which will be under your houses, barn and inside the barn, hole in trees, even under your own beds.

Clinton.

 

[Kedreeva]

I can't see shooting your neighbor's cat, and don't get me wrong because I LOVE cats, but strays could do with a little population control. It's difficult to trap ferals for spay/neuter and even just one female on the loose can produce a LOT of kittens in her lifetime. It seems cruel at first, but if the cats are feral they aren't going to find a home if caught and some of them would as soon take your face off as look at you. At least here, with michigan winters, they're almost better off dead than starving or freezing to death when winter comes

As for guns, my dad is an excellent shot with a .22 rifle and somehow he always seems to get them right between the eyes. I have no idea how but he never misses and never wounds. Wish I had that sort of precision!

 

[Frosty]

I can see shooting the neighbors cats if they cause problems. Sometimes one of my neighbors tom cats will decide to take up residence here. If they don't cause problems I leave them alone, but more often than not they start attacking my cats and I have to treat abscesses. It is to the point where I just call the vets office for antibiotics and they give them to me without seeing the cat. The neighbor knows that we shoot them and he doesn't care. He just says it saves him the trouble. Since we got the rest of ours spayed/neutered, his cats haven't been around as much. I'm glad, because we really hate shooting cats.

Actually, it's good to have a quiet pellet gun available to use. Then if you have a rat in the bird building, you can shoot them without scaring the birds. My turkey building was the only building we have that the cats can't get into, and rats took up residence. I saw where something was digging in there, but couldn't see what it was. Then one night I found the remains of a dead rat in the barn (where the cats live) and figured I finally had confirmation of what was in the turkey barn. I went out to the building (it was dark out) and there were about a dozen rats that just stopped and stared at me. They didn't run, which was a bit unnerving. I spent many nights with a pellet gun and a flash light out there. Surprising that before I didn't see any trace of them, now they were pretty active. I would position myself at a hole and drop bait right outside of the hole. As soon as I saw their head, I would pop them from about 6" away. They would hurry and push dirt over their buddy that I just shot, and probably ate it. I had at least 15 'confirmed kills', those are the ones that I actually was able to retrieve the body to dispose of it. With a quiet gun, the birds weren't disturbed at all. A shot gun would probably have been quicker, but my turkeys would have freaked at the first shot.

 

[Kedreeva]

In the interest of quiet guns, I know they sell subsonic rounds for my .22 rifle. We use them to pick off cowbirds (invasive species, pest that lays eggs in other birds' nests and their young push out the eggs/young of the native birds

) so it doesn't scare the flock off every time we take a shot. It sounds like a puff of air or a tap when fired and the target just falls over dead. Maybe there are subsonic rounds for a larger gun that would more easily deal with things like coons and skunks etc.