Weirdest Raccoon encounter... (graphic picture)

[sommrluv]

Wow, I've seen groundhogs climb a tree and fall. It's shocking. I'm crossing my fingers there won't be any intruders while we're out.

 

[Caincando1]

That is odd. Usually they don't get stuck. Judging by the size of the fence, i'd say that's actually a small coon (15lbs). It's probably a young one and didn't realize that it was growing and wasn't used to the added size and thought it could fit through. Did you weigh it? A 30 lb coon is monster and would have just went over that fence.

 

[Judy]

The only thing I've ever seen do that is a rabbit.

 

[queenbeezz]

I'm sure there are more. Racoons are never alone, there is always more. Lock everything up and set traps. My question is what killed him? You'd think he'd be alive and really ticked off when you found him. Just stuck. Guess he saved you the trouble of sending him to the big coon farm in the sky.

 

[GAchick]

Quote:
I was just about to say that, when I read your post ddawn....

 

[sommrluv]

We didn't weigh it, but DH dispatches his fair share of predators and he hunts, and he's usually a good estimate. He said it was at least 30 lbs and it looked that big when I was standing next to it...we tend to get monsters in our area because it's not popular to hunt them here in Eastern PA.

I can't remember the size of the fence, it's the average box, just small enough the terriers can't get through, but rabbits and such can, but I rarely have a rabbit issue in my garden so we didn't do the wire. He was as long as my torso!

There's no dogs that run loose in the area, but I guess he could have been chased? There wasn't a mark on him.

I told my husband he saw the messy garden and committed suicide.

Will they scare themselves to death, like rabbits?

 

[wyoDreamer]

I lived in an old farmhouse at the end of a mile long dead-end dirt road on North-central Wisconsin. I had my dogs fenced with a single run of electric fence on the inside of the fence to stop them from digging out, 6" from the chainlink and 6" up from the ground. (I timed my husky once - 6.2 seconds to dig enough to squeeze under the fence.)

The dogs food and water were in the back porch and they had a doggy door to go in and out at will. I left them for two days one fall, with enough food and water for a week - and when I came back they were so excited to show me their surprise.

Somehow - or someWHY? - an young coon climbed the 4' chainlink fence into the dog pen. The dogs treed him in the big oak in the center of the yard. The dogs took turns running up to me to say "HELLO< LOOK WHAT WE GOT!!!!" , with one of them always on guard duty at the tree!

The poor coon wouldn't leave the tree for 3 days after I removed the dogs from the yard! He must have spread the word because I never saw another coon while I lived there.

That same fence setup killed two squirrels, they both tried to climb through the fence into the dog yard - with the dogs present - and both died at the electric fence.

My guess is that the coon sufficated himself by wedging into the fence opening and compressing his ribcage which wouldn't let him take a breath.