Baby Raccoons, new pics, post #26, Face to Face.

[Mattemma]

They sure are cute. I try to remind myself that those teeth would tear up my hens in a second. They are covered in ticks and probably have roundworms they deposit all over my yard that my kids could contract.

One year my mom was having issues with coons tearing up her yard/garden.She called AC to see if they would trap them.Instead AC told her to get rid of her garden.

 

[bakerjw]

They are adorable creatures. It's always hard to eliminate them but they are a nuisance.

I have a trap savvy coon as well. Well at least I think that I still might. Had a big one in the trap this morning. You can retrain them to not be trap savvy. Just put the food outside of the trap and move it in a few inches each night.

 

[mommaspeeps]

Recently we found a family of FIVE in the tree just beyond our back porch... this was after losing three chickens in the previous week. Have since bought a gun to have handy in situations like that. Oh and traps - one coon, three cats, a skunk, and our poor dog Chico three times (he just doesn't learn) in a matter of four days. No sign of the coons, hope they come back to meet our new friend Mr. 22

 

[BlackBrookPoultry]

Quote:
Absolutely agree with you and Dogfish. They'll be back to visit as predators when they're grown.

I have never had a coon kill during the day. As long as I lock the chickens up a night there's not a problem. Mink on the other hand . . .

 

[CupOJoe42]

Quote:
A friend of ours brought home an abandoned baby raccoon from the nature center where he worked. We had to bottle feed him and get him weaned. "Buddy" used to climb up my pants leg and fall asleep on my shoulder. He was adorable, but we knew that he would turn nasty once he reached puberty. Fortunately for him, he was able to go in with the older raccoons before that and I believe he was later released into the wild.

 

[Tylt33]

This thread is great. The raccoons are cute, the OP chases them around, and the regular crowd tells him what he "should" be doing as if he doesn't know what his options are. I vote for keep smacking them around when they're naughty

 

[mothrhen]

LOL! Poor Chico. . . He's a chihuahua?

 

[Thornius]

As a boy, I had pet raccoons, foxes, skunks, and crows. My problem was the raccoons would lure the crows over to the cages and then snap their heads off. I can no longer keep raccoons as pets, but have no qualms about killing wild predatory raccoons or any other wild predator.

 

[zengrrl]

They are too cute, however now I see them in a whole new light of course. Thanks for the pic though -

 

[jjthink]

Raccoons everywhere here. I can hear them conversing in the trees at night. Since not a daytime problem and since I keep my birds in Fort Knox at night, they are not a worry for me or my birds. There is the occasional daytime raccoon strolling around but they are dazed in the daytime (not rabid, just wrong time of day for them and they are loopy). When I could free range my birds (before too many neighbors were irrresponsibly letting their dogs run loose) I watched in horror-turned-relief when a coon walked right past my hen Ellie, completely oblivious. My nutty feather-girl then began following the coon, right on his tail! I ran at the speed of light to gather her up - the coon could not have cared less. Not wise to assume all would be quite as dazed but from chats with animal control and some reading, it appears that while coons are sometimes out in the daytime, they are not quite with it when they are. I'm sure there is sometimes an exception, so I am not going to totally relax about it!
JJ