HE CAME UP ON MY PORCH!!!

[Sylviaanne]

When they roost on your porch at night , pick them up and put them in the coop and lock them in there for a week then they will go in their every night after.
Catch and release is bad. All it does is kill someone else's chickens.

It is crowded in the coop but they are finally all going in at night. There are still up to 7 of them that I don't know where they roost but there are 5 that like to roost on the porch and we can put them in the coop and they have stopped trying to escape when we do.

I think catch and release is bad too but I think he has got it now. He actually shot the opossum today.

 

[enola]

I always cringe when someone says they trapped a predator and then released it somewhere else. I always hope it is no where near me. I don't want or need the headache of trying to catch a coon that is smart enough to stay away from traps. I am glad your husband is catching on! Good luck catching all of your predators.

 

[Sylviaanne]

The best information I currently have is that it is a federal as well as a state crime in all 50 states to release a raccoon in any location other than in the exact same location that you trapped him.

This is to facilitate the federal program to eradicate rabies in the wild raccoon population. Sorry but I think that others here will agree that it is the height of irresponsible behavior to train a raccoon to avoid a trap.

By following this law you may also help prevent a child, maybe even your own child from contracting the rabies virus.


My husband checked it out with the conservation department and because I didn't think they would support him, I was standing right there when they said it. Boy, was I shocked. We though the raccoon was going through our birds left and right and now we know why it seemed that way. At least he is on the right track now.

 

[Sylviaanne]

I would shoot him..I trapped a couple and skunks to I had no chickens, i shoot them in the trap. I had a coon get in my fence and when my dog tried to run it out the little turd turned around and whacked her in the nose with his claws. She is a huge xlarge breed dog and that coon was going to take her on. But she came yelping to my back door with a huge open wound on her nose, an inch more and he would have surely blinded her. That was the first coon I trapped and i was heartless in killing it to be truthful...I had to vet the dog and contain her thank god she had not got nothing from the coon. But she still has her battle wound 9 years later the hair just barely covers it and she has a lump on her nose from it. Those things are really fearless that coon took on 145lb dog. So kill it chickens weigh a fraction of that.

Yeah, I can't wait to be rid of this one. I don't have a dog that would even pay attention to a raccoon other than to possibly want to play with it.

 

[Sylviaanne]

If you want to live trap him--- secure your hens in the coop--- put some tasty food scraps in a trash can on its side somewhere. Do this for 2-3 nights and let him eat unbothered, then tie open your box trap- put it in the same trash can on its side with some lovely garbage scraps and let him eat out of the tied open trap in the trash can for 2-3 nights. Then when he is comfortable going in to eat set your trap, but keep it in the trash can. I find the best coon bait to be a cheap roll of ready to bake cookie dough, slice off a inch thick round and toss into back of trap. Doing the relocation yourself can get you in trouble w/ the law in some places, your animal control officer may remove nuisance animals for free. good luck

Great ideas! Thank you.

 

[Sylviaanne]

Try a "giving" your flock to a Border Collie! They take their job very seriously! Have you tried baiting the live trap with tuna? Not too
many carnivores can resist it.. Good luck. Hope you find resolution soon.

We did try tuna and canned cat food and I don't know how many other things. I think bought marshmallows but that was about the time we caught the first one or this one previously if it found it's way back.

I sent my husband out for more tuna a few nights ago and he did a smart thing. It didn't catch the raccoon but it kept the cats/kittens from eating the food up. He just stabbed the can. It is open enough that the smell can float out but if a cat or kitten gets caught in the trap trying to eat the tuna, they can't get it.

 

[Sylviaanne]

I always cringe when someone says they trapped a predator and then released it somewhere else. I always hope it is no where near me. I don't want or need the headache of trying to catch a coon that is smart enough to stay away from traps. I am glad your husband is catching on! Good luck catching all of your predators.

Oh, believe me, I gave him every argument I could think of and I also asked here and on facebook about raccoons and then gave him all the arguments I didn't know about and he still insisted on catching and releasing that one.

Sometimes, given enough time he will come around to my way of thinking but only if someone else tells him the same facts. He was reading something on the computer and read about releasing the raccoon in someone else's property and how harmful that could be to the landowner and the raccoon by putting it in a place where it didn't know the lay of the land and would have to fight for it's place in the food chain. Now, he's willing to shoot the darn thing. Or then again, maybe it's because I forced him to buy me a shotgun and it kind of embarrassed him that I was willing to do what he wasn't.

 

[FishaRneKed]

Get sticky paper/glue traps. There are large rat size ones. They smell like cotton candy.

put them up where your chickens wont get stuck to them. Like on the porch but on your wall.

the coon wont be stuck to the trap, but the trap will be stuck to the coon. if he gets stuck with a few of them, it will cause him to fight him self.

you can whack him with a shovel while his hands are all stuck.

 

[FishaRneKed]

You would be surprised by all the things you can catch in glue paper

 

[ShaVirginia]

My sis in FL panhandle had to trap and kill 3 Bull Coons before she solved her problem.
Something climbed 2 fences and killed my pet rooster.
Regards,
ShaVirginia