Dealing with racoons (graphic description warning)

The possums are as likely to eat chicken as a coon. Destroy all you catch. Once you have taken care of the possums the coon will be easy to trap as well. Cat food, tuna, salmon or any other fish seems to work best.

Remember, both coons and possums will return to their home range from great distances, and are much harder to catch a second time. so don't think that you can relocate them. You will only have to deal with them again. If you catch them, the only way to be sure that they will not be back is if you kill them.
live trap with wet cat food or tuna as listed above. put along side a dark wall.
 
Sorry for your loss. We've had chickens killed and eaten by opossums and raccoons and it's quite horrible. We now have a big coop and run fully covered in chain link covered with small gauge hardware cloth held together by zip ties. I regularly check to make sure everything is secure (it's really hard to 100% secure a coop). Our chickens free range during the day, but are secured at night.

Over the summer I forgot to shut the door 15 minutes after dark and a raccoon had already killed one of our hens and had another pinned down. This raccoon was HUGE. We rented the largest live trap we could find and whatever we caught in it went totally berserk and somehow escaped. I don't know how, the door was still shut, but there was blood and hair everywhere and the bait was eaten.

We've had opossums kill chickens as well. We find animal droppings around the coop and run still, but so far so good. It's illegal to trap and kill most wild animals in our area, so we've found it easiest to secure the coop as much as possible.
 
So sorry to hear about everyone's losses! It's not fun losing something to a predator. I am going to spend some time this weekend securing the coop/run a little more. I haven't had a problem until this incident (which was largely my fault) and I'm not going to let my negligence strike twice. I'm gonna try for the coon for this weekend and then call the trapping a wrap unless they go oceans 11 on me
 
Also, :welcome :frow So sorry for your loss. I have electric wires around my coops and pens and nothing so far has gotten past the electric wires. I have seen where a predator has made an attempt but once they get zapped they don't attempt it again. Now I think the adult predators teach their young that a chicken isn't worth getting zapped for. Good luck...
 
Dispatching trapped target animals is the plan, however when I caught the possums I wasn't certain whether or not they were culprits and still may simply release them. I'm in a rural area so the occasional gunshot is common and legal. I missed him again last night, tripped the snare but he got lucky yet again (or I'm that poor of a trapper). He seems to know the box trap is no bueno.
 
I'm gonna try for the coon for this weekend and then call the trapping a wrap unless they go oceans 11 on me
:lau Oceans 11. That made me laugh. Our wild backyard critters definitely have an Oceans 11 scheme worked out. Once we caught a cat in our run, which at the time was only protected by chain link. Somehow it squeezed through the chain link to freedom. Definitely an Oceans 11 move.
 

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