Ongoing Raccoon Invasion

[McChooky]

You will never run out of raccoons, also opossums, foxes and sometimes roaming dogs. Better to reinforce your chicken housing! Electric fencing is a big help, and actually predator proofing at least your coops makes the most sense.
We also free range, and it took us years to build our coop, one addition after another, to make it safe.
And the raccoons have to hunt elsewhere...
Mary

Our neighbor free ranged chickens and put out corn and apples for bear and deer and set traps and cameras everywhere to get alerts. He stopped doing it after a bear found a couple bags of dry dog food left under the carport. His family couldn't get out of the car one night

 

[Eristas]

A one time expenditure of $500 on hardware cloth covered my coop and run and made an apron.I've never had to deal with any trapped animals and had to kill and bury them.Neither have I had to buy any guns or ammo,traps or bait or purchase any permits or licenses to trap and kill furbearers that like to eat chickens.It also keeps out rats and snakes that eat eggs and baby chicks.(I have 5 chicks out there right now)I have all the time in the world to do things I enjoy related to taking care of my chickens and don't have to kill any hungry wild animals. Averages out to be .25 day for security

Lucky you I guess?

I have over 60 birds and a full time job. Not all of us have "all the time in the world". You come across as pretty sanctimonious to be honest. My runs and coops are LARGE. $500 of hardware cloth is a) unecessary and b) no where near enough to cover everything. I would need thousands of dollars in hardward cloth to go in that direction. Sure, for tiny flock that never free ranges that setup is fine, but that's not me or a lot of other people on this forum.

Also, I don't need to buy guns for this. I already have plenty of guns; unrelated to racoon issues.

 

[DemeterAD9]

C

Raise chickens long enough you'll need hardware cloth or poison to keep rats from living underneath your chicken coop or run.Rat terriers and cats do a good job of keeping them under control sometimes.Far as I'm concerned losing one chicken to a predator is one too many

I’ve personally have never even seen a rat and I’m outside doing this and that all times of the year. Supposedly my grandpa saw one some years ago but he lives on a lake so there’s that. Luckily we just don’t seem to have rats in our area. For rodents we have a lot of squirrel species (flying, grey, red, fox) and the various species of mice and voles. I know the squirrels get in the feed during the leaner months and the mice are probably always getting in it but I only ever notice if one get’s stuck in a bucket or something. I won’t use poison myself, after my beloved cat had an early death due to possibly eating a poisoned mouse I cannot bring myself to use that crap. I miss him terribly.

 

[McChooky]

Lucky you I guess?

I have over 60 birds and a full time job. Not all of us have "all the time in the world". You come across as pretty sanctimonious to be honest. My runs and coops are LARGE. $500 of hardware cloth is a) unecessary and b) no where near enough to cover everything. I would need thousands of dollars in hardward cloth to go in that direction. Sure, for tiny flock that never free ranges that setup is fine, but that's not me or a lot of other people on this forum.

Also, I don't need to buy guns for this. I already have plenty of guns; unrelated to racoon issues.

Not everyone who raises chickens hunts and traps .That requires a lot of time as well so regardless of how many hours people work or how many chickens they have few of us want rats living underneath our runs or snakes eating our chicks.Keeping them safe is a priority

 

[DemeterAD9]

Feeder outside the run was knocked over this morning, traps have been reset with fresh bait. We'll see what happens in the morning or perhaps over the next few days.

As a side note, the grey squirrels are chewing wires on a trailer that sits near the run. Small game season starts in 4 days and it looks like I'll be a doing a little pest control around the house. This will also save the cherries come next year, they really cleaned them up as soon as they started ripening this year. We've seen a couple with mange as well so all the more reason to thin them out a bit.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Something has been going in my trap taking my rat bait and not setting the trap off. It’s gotta be a lil opossum. Already caught and dispatched 4 possums and 2 coons. I’ve slow cooked them for my chickens. Really hate the smell of opossums. I’ll process coons lol but out of the two adult opossums. One had 10 babies leeching off it and the other had 4 ,Chickens liked those raw lol. Now got something also eating my tomatoes it’s gotta be the ground hog… bout to make a stew out of that to.

 

[DemeterAD9]

A small male this time. Shouldn’t be too fatty so I might clean it and throw it in the crockpot for the chicken. They’re molting and all so they might appreciate the extra protein.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Caught another this morning, a medium sized female this time. I skinned and parted it out, will be throwing it in the crockpot before feeding it to the chickens.

 

[NewcoopNewpoop]

I know you can’t remove all the pests, all you can do is try to control the population. Foxes are not much of a problem, at least not right where I live. Never saw nor heard a fox around the house but coyotes are another story, we hear them across the road quite often and I’ve run into them a few times while hunting over there. Of all the pests, I’m just glad we don’t have rats. I wouldn’t know where to start if we had a proper rat infestation.

Electric fencing would be my final option if population control isn’t cutting it. I’m not a very “handy” person when it comes to building and fixing things but I like to think I am pretty good at hunting/trapping. Guess I prefer the easiest and more direct route. The traps are unlikely to wear out/break and cost nothing other than the initial price. 22 bullets are cheap enough as well, I could even break out the pellet gun but I’ve yet to see if it is very effective on a big old coon. I should try that next time.

Pellet guns are absolutely inadequate on a coon.

 

[DemeterAD9]

Pellet guns are absolutely inadequate on a coon.

Depends on the pellet gun and where you shoot them. I used a .22 air rifle to dispatch the one this morning. Shot it right in the vitals (just behind the shoulder) and it was done in less than 30 seconds. That being said, I've used the same .22 pellet gun on a smallish woodchuck that my dog put up a tree. Shot it in the head and it only stunned it. We have a .177 pellet gun that is actually pretty good on squirrels and chickens, I bet it would also kill a coon if you aim for the lungs/heart. I hear a lot of trappers prefer to dispatch with a pellet to the vitals as it is much less bloody and I agree there wasn't any blood to be seen as it was all in the chest cavity.