I've got a coon! Help please!

[newchickenownersandy]

I would have to completely rebuild the entire outdoor run/coop. They like to roost outside of the coop, in the enclosed run that I added on to the coop. It's a 5 ft. by 10 ft. run that is completely enclosed in chicken wire. The wire comes down to the ground and folds out for atleast 12 inches with concrete blocks on top of the wire to prevent a varmit from digging under. But all of this won't help if they can chew through. So, I'm guessing the next thing to think about is an electric wire....

 

[newchickenownersandy]

I have a small live trap that I'll try tomorrow night. I've heard tuna fish can with holes punched in the top will attract them into the trap. Guess I need to be willing to kill this sucker.

 

[newchickenownersandy]

Chicken wire? I’m surprised he’s not in already .... electric wire electric wire .....use solar power

Ok. Thank you for the advise. I'll definitely be looking into this.

 

[Beer can]

I use just chicken wire for many yrs, NOT recommended but had no breaches till recently and it was a racoon, must have made it through a whole in the top left no evidence of the breach but I had a dead best JG laid right open the next morn.
Set a havahart style trap the next day and stayed up all night waiting, dragged the sucker through the bushes and pulled out all the bait from the side all caught on trail cam. Set it again hoping it was stupid with a big rock on it and boards on the side, got the thieving murdering #@*/@!!
Cute, but no way I was going to let it have free meals on my dime.

 

[newchickenownersandy]

I would not trust the chicken wire to keep the raccoon out. The coon can even reach through and grab a chicken and kill it through the fence. We've had that happen when we had some other fencing up that had 1 x 2 inch rectangles.
We have caught many raccoons in live traps. In my opinion you have to be prepared to kill the raccoon when you catch it. Otherwise, it will just come back or it will become some other person's problem. Do you have any lights out there? We ended up putting up motion sensor lights. That seems to help some.
Good luck. I have heard that some people pee outside around their coop, but I don't have any personal experience with that, so I don't know if it works or not. However, urine does have ammonia in it. ( I think)

Thank you. I'll set up a live trap tomorrow night and be ready to deal with this. And I'll have the hubby take care of business around the coop and about the lights, we have them but not motion sensor. I'll look into changing that too

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Four hours seems to be a lot of time to invest on breaching a coop. Are you certain only one raccoon is involved?

If you are confident in your build, then do nothing. I would put a little hotwire on the coop.

Raccoons are not lone predators but rather they work in teams. HEED centrarchid's warning.

 

[JEK]

You either have to have a very secure coop that you close every night, or get comfortable killing raccoons, at least around here you do. I've come to much prefer the latter. I like my birds to free range un-fenced and be out at sunrise while I sleep in. My coop is open 24/7 and I never loose birds because I keep two cage traps baited 24/7/365. The raccoons always go for the baited traps before the coop. And as a bird lover I enjoy seeing the vultures who then come for the raccoons. Plus raccoons cause other problems like looting trash and bird feeders. Just think of them as giant rats

 

[Folly's place]

Raccoons are cute until you see what they do to your birds. Then they are UGLY! I have a very secure coop/ run combination, after starting with no protection for may birds, and many deaths. Take all this good advice and fix the coop, add electric, and trap and shoot!
You will need to tie the live trap down, or put concrete blocks on top, so they don't knock it over. I have a medium and a large trap, and set them both up out there. Marshmallows, cat food, any thing works.
Mary

 

[cmom]

I tried motion sensing lights and they didn't seem to bother the predators. I see coons every once in a great while, but I do have electric around my coops and pens, heavy duty netting over the tops of the pens and concrete under the gates. I do have a few game cameras set up. I do see predators on the game cameras most every night but luckily they aren't bothering the birds. I don't shut the pop doors on the coops. Before I put the netting up over the pens I had an owl get in one of my open coops and kill several birds.

 

[cmom]

Th owl doesn't look large but it was a big owl and had a 5' wingspan.