Weirdest Raccoon encounter... (graphic picture)

[sommrluv]

We have a garden on the side of our property, completely fenced in. It's basically more to keep the dogs out than anything else.

This morning the dogs were barking their fool heads off around 4 am, but it's often deer so we just brought them back in. So around mid-morning I went to investigate and noticed a very large furry form in the garden. It wasn't moving so after throwing a few rocks at it, I went to see...it was a rather fat, approx. 30 lb racoon wedged into my fence. His body was on the other side, and his arms and head were squeezed through a hole, and he was dead.

I think he strangled himself...isn't that odd? Did he commit suicide? LOL. Has this ever happened to anyone?

Fortunately, that fencing is much wider than our chicken wire fencing, so I'm not as concerned with that area, but we closed the coop doors tonight to be sure.

I guess my one question would be, do raccoons travel in packs that I should expect more? I hadn't seen any before this, only fox, rabbits, groundhogs, deer, etc. I'm not necessarily surprised to see him, but since he didn't get food and go back home, should I be expecting more?

The chicken area is pretty secure, but I have three neighbors who in the last year have all gotten birds, so I should probably warn them I guess.

Weirdest thing to see that fat raccoon stuck in the fence this morning! LOL


Edited to add picture:

 

[Tala]

Close your coop every night, just in case.

 

[pringle]

Lol that greedy coon got what was coming too him chickens:1 coon:0

 

[dirtsaver]

I'm 55 and lived in the country all my life and I've never seen a coon do that. My guess is it just pushed it's luck a bit too far. You do need to warn all your neighbors because even if you have not seen them,coons are everywhere. There will be more show up as the winter gets farther along and food sources get harder to find.

Larry

 

[Mahonri]

Coons are NEVER alone, there's always more. Keep everything locked tight at night.

 

[ADozenGirlz]

A raccoon got one of our chicks this summer so we set a live trap to get "him." Little did we know that there were FIVE of "HIM" out there (plus a skunk and an opossum). He did you a favor by being over-ambitious. Lock down the hen house, his family will be back.

 

[zazouse]

Bet that coons been reading the predator fourms here on BYC and believed he could tear up that fence and get out

Be careful his friends are lurking somewhere.

 

[sommrluv]

OMG look at that game cam picture! So cool. Well, not really, but you know what I mean.

I wanted to get a good picture, but my husband removed him before I got done running errands this after. I did snap a cell phone picture that I sent to hubby to show him. It's not the best but I will figure out how to upload it.

We have a housesitter next week so I'll have to change our "rules" as far as shutting everything up. I'd hate to come home to no chickens!

 

[sommrluv]

Picture added. Hubby said he was pretty well stuck in there.

When I first saw him, I wasn't sure from far away if he was a bear or a dog...you can't see the mask in the picture.

 

[ivan3]

Have never gotten that lucky.

We have a 60ft. Hickory in the chicken run and several White Oaks/Hickories nearby. There are NO branches big enough to support a coon that extend from the trees outside the run to the branches of the Hickory in the run. On a cold Jan. afternoon I heard the chooks and turks giving the ground pred alerts. I looked around, through the window, and saw nothing. I glanced up and there was a big coon attempting to cross from the hickory closest to the run to the hickory in the run. The branch was vibrating with the coon's attempt to maintain its balance while moving towards its goal. I just picked up the rifle and waited. The branch gave way and the coon dropped about 30ft., it started moving away, slowly. It did not suffer long.