Caught the Coon!

[RHewittJr]

I lost two pullets over the past two nights and noticed eggs being broken open on one end and all the yolk being eaten. Found a hole in the top of my run today. Decided to place my live catch trap inside the coop with the open end butted up to the pop hole. That made it so that the only way into the coop was through the trap. Put a can of tuna in the trap right at dark and by 11:00pm caught a big raccoon. It died shortly after of lead poisioning because I did not want to dump my trouble down the road on someone else. I can rest better tonight knowing the killer is gone.

Wanted to share the trap inside the coop in front of the pop door idea. It worked great!

 

[dawg53]

Good job! I recently had a sneaky critter getting into my pen at night and helping itself to feed and what looked like taking a bath in the water container because I observed that their drinking water was muddy when I'd go out in the mornings to let the chickens out of the pen for the day. Live traps with stinky sardines in them didnt work, nor rat traps, nor cayenne pepper dumped where the critter was digging in at. I ordered 6 spring coil traps online (they look like the bear traps you see in the old movies) except much smaller of course. Since the critter liked corn, that's what I put in the middle of the traps. I'm sure I was dealing with a possum as I had seen one in the yard a few weeks before this all started. Each morning I went out early to check the traps, one or two traps would be snapped and all the corn eaten. I'd remove the traps each morning because I knew that my chickens curiosity would get them in trouble with the traps. This nonsense went on for 7 days, same thing every morning. I had set one trap outside the pen and on the 8th morning when I went out to check the traps, the trap outside the pen was missing. You could see where it had been dragged across the dirt for about 10 feet before it turned into grass and the trail disappeared...along with the trap. The trap had a chain attached to it and I had attached a chainlink to a strong nail that I had previously hammered into a 4x4 pressure treated post. The nail was bent,almost doubled in half. It mustve been a huge mama possum to bend a big nail that size. My backyard is enclosed with a 5' tall chainlink fence. I searched all morning for that steel trap, knowing it still had to be attached to the possums snout, I never found it. There were no holes under the fence to escape...nothing. I even looked up in all the trees in the yard, nothing. After several days I figured the possum would be dead and I'd smell the carcass or at least vultures flying around, then I could recover my trap. That never happened and the possum never returned since that incident neither. I wonder where my trap is.

 

[Miltonchix]

I'd keep the trap set for a few more days.
Theres bound to be more than one around.

 

[RHewitt]

I'd keep the trap set for a few more days.
Theres bound to be more than one around.

Good idea! If it was big Momma coon her offspring may still be hanging around.​