Frist Raccoon in 3 years!!

[Bleenie]

Last night I had my sister come help me move the "baby pen", it's a small house with an attached run. We got it moved and then walked to the babies day pen to move them. my 2 older Brown Chinese Goslings and their Khaki buddy were outside the pen, i let them run free because they only go a couple feet from the other babies in the pen & they LOVE munching on the grass.

well we were talking as we went to pick all the babies up and move them and out of nowhere my sister goes "look!" There was a BIG, FAT Raccoon sitting aout 7 feet from us eating some dog food i hadn't picked up(we had the dog tied out). Just sitting there watching us chat... of course i shrieked and my dumb little babies all 3 went walking towards the Coon!

I snatched them up in one swoop and ran to the other pen by the house and my sister sent the dog after the Coon.

The dog chased the Coon away and after I calmed down i realized that i think i accidentally picked one of the goslings up by mostly its neck in my hurry to get them away... well i felt like a meanie but thank God no one was hurt.

I said later that it was probably a good thing i forgot to pick the dog food up..the Coon might have had duck for dinner instead of kibble.

First Raccoon i've seen on the property in 3 years and OF COURSE it has to show up right next to my baby ducks and scare the crap out of me!

 

[sonjab314]

Are you having bbq coon for dinner?

 

[Bleenie]

The dog chased it away but didn't catch it. I am sure I would ahve been doing some stiches if she'd caught it... the thing was bigger than our Cocker Spaniel/Mini Eskimo mix!! Must ahve been a boy.

ETA: I think we may be putting out a trap for them..they like Tuna dont they?

 

[Cuban Longtails]

Cats like Tuna too. Try marshmellows.

 

[katharinad]

Luckily your dog did not corner the sucker. They can do some serious damage to a dog. Also you see one coon, you have 5 more. The worst part is it will come back. You cannot trap and rehome them either. 5 miles is nothing for them to walk back home, and they are smart. This means you have to trap and kill it. We had to do that this spring when we had an explosion of coon showing up. We ended up shooting 5 of them. We don't shoot them out in the field running away, because we don't want them to get away injured and suffer. We either shoot them in the trap or when they are up in a tree. That's usually at night. One holds the flash light the other shoots and makes sure they are dead when they hit the ground. There is no getting away. That may sounds cruel, but be assured they will not suffer long at all. After that we drag them off behind our property into forest land where they coyotes and who knows what will eat them in a day. Don't want my dogs to dig them up. I hate to kill animals, but when it comes to protect my pets I will. I will never use poison, because that it very cruel. A short and pain less death if possible. We don't use a shot gun, just a riffle. It's less messy.

 

[Bleenie]

I did plan to kill them right away if i found one in the trap & also figured i could just toss them back by the hill for the coyotes or whatever wants to eat them.

We spotted 2 babies a couple weeks ago, they looked lost like mom was not around but they were right by a main road so we didn't bother with them. I know there's a ton of them around here, just haven't seen one on the property in years, probably because of the dogs.

 

[katharinad]

The ones we had didn't care about our 4 dogs. They would be on the back deck of the house with the dog and taking their merry time to get over to the trees. No running at all. We could step out on the deck and they would still not rush. Bold suckers. I'm glad that my dogs keep distance and only bark. Still I didn't want to take the change of getting one of my dogs attacked by them.

 

[Turkeyrangler]

if you want to catch raccoons, use sardines in oil, best bait I've ever used.

 

[cptkracker]

I am actually watching my birds waiting for a 'coon and decided to read about chickens. Lil' bugger already packed off two and severed one of my pullet's legs. I ain't trappin' him. He gets a 12 guage to the face!

I can impart some serious racoon knowledge apon you. Racoons love an easy meal which means they'll come at night AND eat the defenceless ones. We used to bait them with cat food and frozen chickens legs wired to a heavy object. They will NOT let go of food. You can also leave a small jar full of goodies and they will get their paw caught because they grab too much. One thing I have noticed is that once some start dieing they are more hesitant to come by. I actually used to cut the trails up and nail them to fence posts which coons would NOT get near. Plus they're nice ornaments

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I don't know 'bout you guys but where i live we get racoons the size of medium size dogs. 50 pounds or more! And yes, they can kill a dog EASY, so try to keep fluffy away.