something new in the 'hood

[bobbi-j]

Quote:
We have one that lives in the trees down the road from us. Last Sat. my DIL and I were out for a walk about noon, and it came up out of the ditch quite bit ahead of us and was walking straight down the road at us. I finally said something, and it looked up and ran into the grass. I saw it again yesterday about the same time, in the same place, walking down the middle of the road. I was in the car that time, and it got into the ditch when it heard me coming. I think it's just got a routine. I don't worry about them in the middle of the day unless they're acting abnormally - like if it wouldn't have shown fear when it saw us walking toward it or when the car came near it. We've also seen it sitting outside of a culvert near its grove in the daylight. I'm wondering if it's a female with babies to feed. They'll hunt day or night. Especially if they have an easy food source.

 

[arockkid]

We did hardware cloth from the getgo, got 100 feet of 36" wide cloth with 1/2" spacing for about $80 shipped....I thought that was really reasonable but keep hearing people talk about how expensive that is. I know if you go to tractor supply, it's about $15-20 or something for 5', but there are deals to be found.

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
normally 2 large racoons and 3-5 younger ones

 

[mamabigbird]

It was a young female and by the look of her she seemed healthy enough except for bullet hole.
She had exposed slightly swollen teats so may have babies nearby. That may have prompted her to be out foraging early,
but I really don't know. It doesn't start getting dark up here until about nine these days.

 

[mamabigbird]

Up Date. We left the raccoons' body just outside the chicks pen overnight, in case any other raccoons came sniffing around.
Maybe they'd get the message.
With a little financial assistance and a small work crew we put a three foot high chicken wire liner on the inside of the chain-link fence with enough of a gap that a raccoon shouldn't be able to reach through.
And we covered the roof with hard wire that will keep the critters from crawling in over the top.
We went back to the breeder and picked up three more 7 week olds from the same batch as our survivors and they spent the night out of their brooder cage and back into their dog house/mini coop.
I was very relieved to find all six happily pecking and scratching this morning.
My fingers are crossed that we've solved this problem.