Of All The...! (Worst Raccoon Yet)

[Chickassan]

You're such a softie.

I may be in the minority of peeps, that are GLAD THAT YOU DID NOT HURT THE LIL CREATURE.
WISHING YOU BEST,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[llombardo]

Leave door slightly open to the shed during night. In early morning, before sunrise close it. Most critters will leave shed during night. They will return once daytime arrives. I am inclined to think, it was NOT a skunk. I do have much experience with skunks,, BTW never got personally sprayed. All my family members are afraid of skunks,,,,, except of course for me. I know how to be around them.
Am inclined to think it was a raccoon, since it may have been gray and white. (what you were able to see in probably dim light)

I'm afraid more will come in and not make it back out before I close it.

When I went to check last night I heard something move in the tree above the shed. There is a faint animal smell in the shed and I heard movement under the tarp in the corner. So now I'm going to just take everything out and put my shelves in. Everything is kind of tossed around-time to clean it out anyway. Dreading this job.

I'm okay with a baby anything. I've encounterd skunks without issues, I actually like them. I don't want to get attacked by a raccoon. My neighbor was attacked on his porch by one about a month ago and he shot it. This was about the same time I fixed my shed, so maybe babies in the shed and mom is dead?

 

[cmom]

If you have a game camera, you could put it somewhere in the shed and see if you get anything on the camera.
This is a possum getting my rat bait in my barn. After doing some research I discovered they are immune to rat poison. I noticed that whole pieces of rat bait were missing and couldn't figure out how until I put a camera up.

 

[Biddybot]

A sad update...

Well, I did catch that raccoon the same night as I was typing up my first post. Found it curled up and seemingly asleep again in the older of my two live traps when I got home and I went in the house and got myself settled and changed clothes, then came out again to go deal with it. I was actually in a good mood. I'd caught the raccoon (yay!) and was starting my four-day string of days off and would now feel safe letting the chickens out and spending a gardening day out with them.

When I initially lifted the trap with the raccoon in it, it sluggishly came awake and moved to sit in the trap end furthest away from me. It also turned out to be bigger than I initially thought--a yearling female. It was just that it was so thin and narrow that it seemed a good deal smaller when all curled up and all you saw was a ball of fur. It did seem sick, pinched about the face and its ears seemed droopy, and had very bad fur even for an animal that had recently come out of hibernation...thin, standing-on-end, 'dead' fur. I could see something red in its belly area--it was sitting on its haunches, back feet out--and it took me a minute to really figure out what I was looking at.

The red thing was all that remained of its right foreleg, the part analogous to our forearms. No paw or wrist left, just a horribly swollen mass with its uppermost part ground halfway down into the muscle and with a couple of inches of the thinner forearm bone sticking out. Its right hind foot had also been badly injured with a terrible wound on its top and was likewise very swollen. To top it off, the poor animal had a bald divot gouged into it's head between its ears.

The only way I can think of for it to incur such wounds is that a large truck ALMOST ran it over and that one or both tires on one side caught its right foreleg and right hind foot as it either froze in place or maybe even dodged as the vehicle passed over. The undercarriage could have cracked it one across the head too.

The hell of it was that the wounds were very clean and free of localized infection and shreds of dead meat...even the bone sticking out of its forearm was sparking white. The raccoon had clearly been doing her very best and licking her injuries diligently and the flesh wounds were actually healing...they looked about two weeks along. An amazing example of an animal's trying to survive and by far the worst injuries I've ever personally seen any wild animal trying to cope with. But also hopeless. A partially amputated foreleg and a badly injured hindleg, both on the same side... I can't imagine the suffering that raccoon was going through just trying to walk and I'm glad I didn't see her try to do so. I also think she was starting to fight a more generalized, 'blood' infection, hence the sluggishness, rail-thinness, and 'dead' hair. I put her down as quickly as I could after seeing all that and consider that it was a mercy killing on top of just putting a potentially dangerous chicken predator down.

So, as it turned out, that raccoon did indeed have a very good reason for behaving in a manner which I considered suspiciously abnormal. I just wish it wasn't such a darn sad reason...sigh... She reminded me of those pitiful animals you see in Africa sometimes, the ones that get caught in poachers' snares and who only manage to escape at the cost of one of their limbs. They never last long either, normally, unless they have human help.

 

[llombardo]

A sad update...

Well, I did catch that raccoon the same night as I was typing up my first post. Found it curled up and seemingly asleep again in the older of my two live traps when I got home and I went in the house and got myself settled and changed clothes, then came out again to go deal with it. I was actually in a good mood. I'd caught the raccoon (yay!) and was starting my four-day string of days off and would now feel safe letting the chickens out and spending a gardening day out with them.

When I initially lifted the trap with the raccoon in it, it sluggishly came awake and moved to sit in the trap end furthest away from me. It also turned out to be bigger than I initially thought--a yearling female. It was just that it was so thin and narrow that it seemed a good deal smaller when all curled up and all you saw was a ball of fur. It did seem sick, pinched about the face and its ears seemed droopy, and had very bad fur even for an animal that had recently come out of hibernation...thin, standing-on-end, 'dead' fur. I could see something red in its belly area--it was sitting on its haunches, back feet out--and it took me a minute to really figure out what I was looking at.

The red thing was all that remained of its right foreleg, the part analogous to our forearms. No paw or wrist left, just a horribly swollen mass with its uppermost part ground halfway down into the muscle and with a couple of inches of the thinner forearm bone sticking out. Its right hind foot had also been badly injured with a terrible wound on its top and was likewise very swollen. To top it off, the poor animal had a bald divot gouged into it's head between its ears.

The only way I can think of for it to incur such wounds is that a large truck ALMOST ran it over and that one or both tires on one side caught its right foreleg and right hind foot as it either froze in place or maybe even dodged as the vehicle passed over. The undercarriage could have cracked it one across the head too.

The hell of it was that the wounds were very clean and free of localized infection and shreds of dead meat...even the bone sticking out of its forearm was sparking white. The raccoon had clearly been doing her very best and licking her injuries diligently and the flesh wounds were actually healing...they looked about two weeks along. An amazing example of an animal's trying to survive and by far the worst injuries I've ever personally seen any wild animal trying to cope with. But also hopeless. A partially amputated foreleg and a badly injured hindleg, both on the same side... I can't imagine the suffering that raccoon was going through just trying to walk and I'm glad I didn't see her try to do so. I also think she was starting to fight a more generalized, 'blood' infection, hence the sluggishness, rail-thinness, and 'dead' hair. I put her down as quickly as I could after seeing all that and consider that it was a mercy killing on top of just putting a potentially dangerous chicken predator down.

So, as it turned out, that raccoon did indeed have a very good reason for behaving in a manner which I considered suspiciously abnormal. I just wish it wasn't such a darn sad reason...sigh... She reminded me of those pitiful animals you see in Africa sometimes, the ones that get caught in poachers' snares and who only manage to escape at the cost of one of their limbs. They never last long either, normally, unless they have human help.

So did someone use a leg trap and she chewed her way out maybe?

 

[OhZark Biddies]

So did someone use a leg trap and she chewed her way out maybe?

From the description of the wounds on two legs and the head it doesn’t sound like that would fit in this case.

Coil spring traps, aka “foot hold” traps catch critters across the pad of the foot... not high up on the leg... the term “leg hold” trap is a common misnomer that I see a lot on this site...

Typically when damage occurs to a critter’s foot due to a trap, it is due to the person using an oversized trap and/or not checking the trap often enough...but probably mostly an oversized trap...

Overzealous chicken owners are often guilty of rushing out and buying “foot hold” traps after a predator attack... and going with the “bigger is better” simply due to ignorance concerning that type of equipment. I’ve seen it on this site several times.

When used and sized properly coil spring / foot hold traps are every bit as much a “live trap” or “catch and release” trap as the ubiquitous cage style trap. I’ve released domestic dogs from “foot hold” traps and never had one with anything more than numb toes... including a cute little beagle once.

 

[cmom]

I use my live traps now since in the past several years more and more people are moving into our area. I see more cats and dogs roaming around and as long as they leave my birds alone I'll leave them alone. Here most of the predators roam around at night. The days here are now in the mid 90's.I did put the live traps out because I had lost a bird to a fox during the middle of the day and one night something got a gate opened and killed 2 birds. Whatever it was that killed the 2 birds, tried to open the gate the next night but I had wired it shut. I have a camera pointed at the coop but unfortunately it was a little foggy and I saw a fox on the camera the night of the kill but the next night I saw a coyote by that coop. I take videos and convert some of the videos into frames for pictures.

I do have night lights on in my coops.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I use my live traps now since in the past several years more and more people are moving into our area. I see more cats and dogs roaming around and as long as they leave my birds alone I'll leave them alone. Here most of the predators roam around at night. The days here are now in the mid 90's.I did put the live traps out because I had lost a bird to a fox during the middle of the day and one night something got a gate opened and killed 2 birds. Whatever it was that killed the 2 birds, tried to open the gate the next night but I had wired it shut. I have a camera pointed at the coop but unfortunately it was a little foggy and I saw a fox on the camera the night of the kill but the next night I saw a coyote by that coop. I take videos and convert some of the videos into frames for pictures.
View attachment 1788035 View attachment 1788036
I do have night lights on in my coops. View attachment 1788043View attachment 1788046

You’ve got some really nice big cage traps!

Were those pricey? And have you caught a lot of fox and coyote in them?

 

[cavemanrich]

A sad update...

You had to do the most appropriate thing.