Raccoon help! Please help settle an argument with my husband

:welcome I am not an advocate of relocation because then your problem may become someone else's problem. Awhile back I talked to our local Fish and Wildlife because some people were catching and releasing in my area. I asked him about coons too. I relocated 12 skunks in a week using live traps. One night I got 2 skunks in one trap. The officer said they weren't endangered or threatened so I could permanently relocate them. At my chick coop a skunk was attempting to dig under the gate. Somehow the pop door was shut enough the chicks couldn't get in their coop and the skunk was looking for dinner. I went out with gun in hand and attempted to scare it off but it wouldn't go instead it stood facing me stomping it's feet. (boom) I have several game cameras around our property and most every night I see fox, coyote, coons, possums, cats, sometimes some dogs and once in a rare while a bobcat. Everything wants a chicken dinner. I do have electric around my pens and coops and the pens are covered. I have cement under all of the gates.
 
Sooner or later the coon(s) will return during the day and mangle some of your birds. They do hunt during the day just like fox, particularly when they have young to feed. you might want to try killing them off this fall. It will take awhile for a new 'family' to move in and you won't have raccoons with babies needing to be fed nearby.
Or you can do nothing and prepare for the loss of your birds. It will happen. Heck, it will happen even if you start killing the raccoons, just at a slower pace!
Good luck, but I'd kill the raccoon.
 
Regardless of whether or not this coon is after your chickens (which it IS), raccoons carry a bevy of diseases and parasites. I would not one pooping its nastiness even close to where my cats and chickens walk and forage, or where I garden and landscape. There was an outbreak of distemper one county south of me last year due to the overpopulating raccoons that no one is hunting anymore.
 
Everyone else has said it but...GIT IM OOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAATHERE!!!!!!
Raccoons are NOT vegetarians. They can be cunning killers and they love to kill hens! Please please please live trap and relocate that sucker or get someone to take him/her out. They WILL, I repeat WILL, KILL YOUR BIRDS.

IT'S NOT "IF"...IT'S *WHEN*
 
Given enough time a raccoon can chew right through the side of your coop. I've seen raccoons chew through a layer of shingles, the felt, AND the OSB decking to get into the attic of a home. Raccoons do not mess around, you shouldn't either.

THIS! If they are there, they WILL find a way in to whatever they want, even a Fort Knox coop. I've had it happen, myself, and known others that it happened to. They will dig under, chew through, rip open, or manipulate parts of any coop until they manage to get in. I guarantee it.
 
It's illegal to relocate raccoons and several other varmits in many/ most states, because of disease transmission. In Michigan, a trapped critter can be released on the same property, or on private land within the same county, with landowner permission only. Then, the raccoon will either find another chicken coop to raid, die miserably, or travel back home. he will never enter a live trap again either.
Only trap if you will shoot!
Mary
 
Shoot the coon!
Eventually it will find a way in and you will spend the next day cleaning up dead chicken.
If you don't want to shoot it, trap it and release it far away, if there is no law against it.
Sorry didn't read the last post by folly
 

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