Racoons and other critters in the pen, and how to get alerted when they are there. Cost = 20 bucks.

Sublight

Songster
7 Years
Jun 2, 2016
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Pensacola, FL
First let me say, that I know this silly, but this is how my grandfather would always know when someone visited his shop. Its a little sentimental to me, but this has shaped up to be a great opportunity to kill my coon, and I have skulked around this thread for years and never given back. So here comes.

Go to homedepot or lowes and buy a cheap motion sensor.
Then purchase one of these "2-Outlet Polarized Light Socket Adapter" i dont care what brand.
Then get "15 Amp 125-Volt Rubber Grounding Plug".

These three things costed me about 20 bucks.

You will also need 2 extension cords, and a radio (or other noise maker). The radio has to come on when it gets power, so nothing purely digital. It needs to have physical switches at least for power. Mine has Off/CD/AM/FM settings. I just keep it on FM>
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SETUP
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Wire the plug into the motion detector, this will later provide power to the motion detector. You can do this, dont overthink it.
---- To wire the plug: Your green wire is your ground wire, it will connect to the green screw.
Your white wire is your neutral wire, it will connect to the silver screw.
Your black wire is your hot (or live) wire, it will connect to your brass screw.

That was the only difficult thing to do, the rest is just assembling it.

Screw in the light socket adapter, and take out both bulbs from the motion detector. (You dont want the light to come on and scare away the critter. You want to kill it when you catch it in the act)

Mount the motion detector to something and point it at your chicken yard.

Run a extension cord from a power source to the motion detector and plug in the motion detector.

Run another extension cord from the adapter, into your house and plug it into your radio. (I had to break off the ground plug on this extension cord. The round one. Thats ok, the ground and neutral are wired together at your box anyway)

Now when the critter enters the pen, it will trigger the motion detector and turn on your radio. Just listen for the tunes.
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This is how I set my pen up to catch the coon in the act. Take a can of sardines, and open it about half way, and zip tie it about half way up your fence. The coon is a great problem solver and will find it. Make sure it is where you can see the can, and also the coon when it climbs up. Your motion sensor will see it climbing up the fence and you will have a view of the entire bottom of that nasty coon. Then take your shot with a .22 or whatever you use.
----- You will want to try to secure the can on the fence better then this. You want the coon to have to fight the can for a few minutes to free it. You need to have enough time to get the rifle, and get the window open or whatever.

I had to turn down the sensitivity to about half way on the motion sensor, as the first night i got a lot of false alerts.

I tried using tuna fish, but the coons seem to really like the sardines. That was my fathers suggestion and it worked great.
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I know this inst your normal family recipe, but it feels like it to me. Please let me know if this works for you.
Thank you papa.
 
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Good call. I would just need to find a place to put it. Not sure if sardines would be best for a fox but I'm sure they don't care. Just need to figure out a place with a good line of sight. Weekend project :)
 
Currently I keep a baby monitor in my run and if anything comes around my guineas let me know. However, my garage is between my house and my coops, so that doesn't allow me the option to shoot anything from the house.
 
Currently I keep a baby monitor in my run and if anything comes around my guineas let me know. However, my garage is between my house and my coops, so that doesn't allow me the option to shoot anything from the house.
OH MY! I forgot about guineas! I had them as a kid. Id chase them cause they made aweful racket! Mabe one day ill have more. I live in the city now, but will be moving out to the country in a year or so hopefully.
 
Mine are horrible until around 8 or 9 months old and then they quiet down considerably. They do still sound some false alarms, but nothing like before they hit that first mating season. My husband yells and throws things at them and I'm pretty convinced that just makes it worse, because when he goes out of town all you hear is crickets lol

They have proven to be a great money maker though. Last year I made an extra $200+ a month selling guinea keets.
 
Mine are horrible until around 8 or 9 months old and then they quiet down considerably. They do still sound some false alarms, but nothing like before they hit that first mating season. My husband yells and throws things at them and I'm pretty convinced that just makes it worse, because when he goes out of town all you hear is crickets lol

They have proven to be a great money maker though. Last year I made an extra $200+ a month selling guinea keets.
That's too funny.
 

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