Caught this little guy snooping around the chicken house last night...

[Pickles03]

We have relocated Raccons - once a mother with 4 babies. They didn't return. I could never kill an animal for being an animal.
It's my job to build the chicken coop as secure as possible for my girls.

 

[TedJan92_in_Idaho]

Relocated it so it can terrorize another mans chickens

 

[Delmar]

Quote:
So the strategy is to trap them, so they know what a trap is and won't fall for that trick again, and relocate them, so they kill your neighbor's chickens instead of yours?

I shoot them, roast them and feed them to my birds. Circle of life baby!

 

[Pickles03]

I will never understand why when people post that they couldn't kill an animal on their property, people who don't think twice about it come out of the woodwork to chastise them.

 

[Nambroth]

Sadly there is no simple solution.
If you relocate (when legal), it can cause a great deal of stress to the animal. Depending on the species, they can be killed over territorial disputes, predators, etc. They can also become someone else's headache.
If you dispose of them, you are killing an animal simply for doing what it does naturally. And some people understandably find themselves unwilling to do so.

I understand both points of view and respect that everyone does what they feel they need to do.

 

[palmettogroves]

Quote:
We relocated it near the river. We are in severe drought so I figure the closer to the water the better. He will have to cross two rivers to get back here. We have water buckets around the property so the wild animals can have something to drink. Just don't want them in our chicken house.

[URL]https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/103574_img00455-20110910-1210.jpg[/URL]

Thanks I'll be waiting on him.We got burn ban too but its OK to BBQ...cva34

We can still BBQ in Brazoria County but we are going to wait until we get some rain. Don't worry, we took him toward Lake Jackson, not Van Vleck.

 

[watchdogps]

Burn ban? Were you going to burn him alive???

 

[cafarmgirl]

Quote:
X 100%!! I could not agree more. I have lived rural and have been keeping chickens, and all kinds of other critters, for a lot of years and I have yet to loose a chicken to a racoon, skunk, possum, fox etc. The only two chickens I've lost were from my first flock years ago that was a free range flock. Coyote got two of them.

I now have secure coops/runs and pasture for my birds therefore I have no need to constantly kill local wildlife. I don't leave a buffet of chicken out for them and they can't get to my feed so I don't have problems.

To the OP: Your attitude of learing to live with the local wildlife and taking steps to keep your chickens secure is commendable and refreshing when so often we have to hear about all the trapping, shooting, poisoning, drowing, etc. etc.

 

[palmettogroves]

While we did relocate this one, we will on occasion kill and butcher them for meat. The pelt prices are minimal around here. This raccoon was a male so he had no family that required his presence. Male raccoons don't raise the babies. They are more social than they are territorial. The males only get in spats when they are competing to mate with a female or if two males want the same food item. Had we caught a sow with babies, they would have been around and trying to get into the trap with mom. Sows wean their babies within three months and the babies remain with mom for another year. After he was caught, we gave him lots of cat food and water and let him sleep for a while in a cool, quiet, shady area until it was time to move him. He was already stressed out enough.

We have found that the most humane way to kill one, if you don't want to use a gun, is to use carbon dioxide. Google carbon dioxide and euthanasia. Most people won't want to invest in a bottle but it seems to be the most humane thing to do. We have hunted all our lives and we truly eat what we kill, with the exception of mosquitoes, roaches, fire ants and other pests. We would NEVER drown an animal or dispatch it in an inhumane way. Cruelty to animals in Texas is now a felony.

Yes, Texas is on fire. No, we weren't going to burn him alive. We were going to cook him after butchering him but he was a little small. We aren't using our BBQ pit right now because our county is under a burn ban. They haven't banned barbecuing yet but we are just being cautious.

I am glad to see so many diverse opinions in this matter. Differing opinions make for great conversation. I'm glad we don't all agree on these topics, that would be boring. We live in an area in which there is a constant battle between the animals and the people for food. We want to eat our chickens but so do the furry friends from the woods. This just helps us to improve our designs and to protect our investment.

Peace...

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Quote:
Texas doesn't mind, as long as you don't set them free in a movie theater or in the mall.

Man,..... Texas sure takes the fun outa trapped coons, don't they?